The Van Jones backstory. So Van Jones now takes his place as the Lani Guinier of the Obama administration, undone by his radical views. Like Guinier, the ousted “green jobs” czar will doubtless employ his political martyrdom to transform ...
September 14, 2009 Steven F. HaywardCalifornia’s Assembly Bill 5 has not been broken, but given a couple of recent developments, it might soon be showing some cracks. On May 20, Assembly Bill 1850, which would exempt some professions from AB5, a law that virtually outlaws independent c...
June 02, 2020 Kerry Jackson
That’s what Pres. Trump said in a tweet on the record-shattering $2 trillion phase 3 stimulus package. Right by the Bay doesn’t question the need for government to step up to help the economy get through the coronavirus pandemic. But even during thi...
March 31, 2020 Rowena ItchonCan Trump yank GM’s electric vehicle tax credit? By Rachel Layne On Tuesday, President Donald Trump vented his anger at General Motors after the company announced several plant closings and more than 14,000 layoffs. The president threatened to elimin...
November 30, 2018 Pacific Research InstituteJerry Brown was tagged with the nickname “Gov. Moonbeam” while in office during the 1970s and 1980s. It was a fitting handle, because he was an unorthodox politician who represented the state’s increasingly curious behavior. Now in his second life as...
September 29, 2017 Kerry JacksonThe Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee has just released a bi-partisan bill authored by Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Patty Murray (D-WA) that would make health care more affordable and more transparent for patients...
May 29, 2019 Wayne WinegardenThanks to Trump’s corporate tax cut, companies have become, well, more enterprising. Where a 31 percent federal tax rate ruled out many new ventures, a 21 percent tax rate makes them far more viable. So, it’s no surprise that state officials have be...
March 15, 2018 Rowena ItchonToday is one of the biggest events of the year at the State Capitol – the Governor’s State of the State Address. When Arnold Schwarzenegger was Governor, it was literally a circus. the entire lawn of the Capitol was literally filled with dozens of s...
January 25, 2018 Tim AnayaWhen I was on vacation recently in Europe, our tour guide would tell us stories every night about her time living as a young bride in Greece with her late husband and young daughter. As we departed, she said she would love to be our......
November 18, 2019 Tim AnayaI’ve written extensively about the ongoing troubles at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Last year, the DMV first made headlines with the scandal over long wait times brought about by a lack of any realistic plan to help millions of Californians upda...
April 02, 2019 Tim AnayaSan Francisco – The Pacific Research Institute (PRI) and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) today released the 2008 Index of Leading Environmental Indicators, an annual report highlighting the significant environmental developments and milestone...
April 09, 2008 Pacific Research InstituteSan Francisco – The Pacific Research Institute (PRI) and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) today released the 2009 Index of Leading Environmental Indicators, an annual report highlighting the significant environmental developments and milestone...
April 16, 2009 Steven F. HaywardWith the advent of 2010 California stands only a decade away from 2020 when, according to plan, the state should be producing a full 33 percent of its electricity from renewable sources. That unrealistic goal will be tough to achieve by any standard ...
January 06, 2010 K. Lloyd BillingsleySan Francisco—Improvements seen across key environmental indicators should be cause for celebration this Earth Day, according to Steven F. Hayward, Ph.D., author of the new book Almanac of Environmental Trends, released by the Pacific Research Instit...
April 20, 2011 Steven F. HaywardThe reduction in air pollution continues to be the most successful domain of pollution reduction since the first Earth Day in 1970. Since the first edition of this Almanac two years ago, reductions in air pollution have been astonishing. The EPA rece...
April 16, 2013 Steven HaywardAssemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, wins the award for the best staged press conference of 2019. Not since Governor Schwarzenegger brought out the infamous “Count Cartaxula” (played by my good friend Walter von Huene) have we seen anything like a...
January 14, 2019 Tim AnayaIn late April, Senator Elizabeth Warren beat out other 2020 presidential contenders to the college-aged voter pulpit by introducing a sweeping student loan forgiveness plan. With the previous debate about the nation’s massive $1.57 trillion student l...
August 21, 2019 Evan HarrisEarlier this year, I wrote about the #Build2020 plan put forward by Assembly Democrats to make it easier to raise taxes at the local level for special taxes and general obligation bonds to pay for things like libraries, hospitals, parks, and other po...
August 22, 2019 Tim AnayaFormer Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy said it best. When speaking about his time in the Legislature, he said, “I’m not a lawmaker. I’m a Republican!” When I worked in the Legislature, I used to always joke that my fellow Republican staff and I had one...
April 02, 2018 Tim AnayaCalifornia voters rejected Proposition 23 and thereby missed their chance to delay implementation of AB 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. That measure is certain to worsen a state economy still in recession, with an unemployment ...
November 17, 2010 K. Lloyd Billingsley
The 50 State Index of Energy Regulation measures the regulatory climate for energy consumption, production, and distribution and which states are more economically efficient. Alabama, Alaska, South Dakota, and Texas tied for the best (#1), while Cali...
August 07, 2014 Wayne WinegardenAs I posted at the Pacific Research Institute website, the California State Lands Commission (SLC) has rejected a proposal that would have led to the first new oil drilling project off the California coast in 40 years. On January 29, the panel voted ...
February 07, 2009 Thomas TantonLast week the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) published its latest fiscal outlook for California. The headlines were so great that you could almost hear the champagne corks popping in Sacramento. Not only has the state budget in California run sur...
November 26, 2019 Wayne WinegardenThe health care debate continues to heat up this week. A big vote in Congress on the Graham-Cassidy health care reform legislation is expected before Saturday, September 30. This is the deadline to pass repeal and replace legislation with just 50 vot...
September 26, 2017 Sally C. PipesThe nation’s Western states are facing severe, and worsening, water shortages. There are both consumption and supply problems, and neither will be easy to fix. However, we have a remedy for the latter. More water is used in America per capita than al...
January 07, 2020 Pacific Research InstituteDespite intense, sometimes contentious negotiations — most recently at a meeting of world leaders in Denmark — the likelihood of a binding deal on global carbon emissions appears remote. Virtually all nations agree about the potential severity of cli...
March 13, 2010 Robert P. MurphySupply Side Economics works. This isn’t a political statement, nor should it be a particularly controversial one either, unless you believe I am referring to the mythical “trickle down” straw man conjured up by some in the political establishment. By...
February 01, 2018 Damon DunnGov. Jerry Brown told us in his recent State of the State address that, of course, nearly all is well in California on his watch. The real state of this state is not so sweet, though. Beneath the sheen applied by the governor, there is......
February 02, 2018 Kerry JacksonIt’s not surprising that many people are skeptical about “scientific” findings. A new study from Japan seems to show that neonicotinoid insecticides (“neonics”), used around the world to protect crops from insect infestations, are so destructive that...
December 11, 2019 Henry Miller, M.S., M.D.PRI is fortunate to be home to several former speechwriters for Presidents and Governors, including me. Anyone who has been a speechwriter watches a big public speech like this week’s State of the Union address or Gov. Newsom’s upcoming State of the ...
February 06, 2020 Tim AnayaIn 1967 Arthur Koestler wrote The Ghost in the Machine, which was essentially a critique of the hypothesis that the human mind could be viewed as a machine, a sort of chemical computer. He went on to consider that if were a computer, then what......
January 02, 2020 Bartlett ClelandToday is Labor Day, which is traditionally the last day of summer and a time for one last barbecue or trip to the beach with family and friends. Labor Day used to be remembered for another annual tradition – the Jerry Lewis Telethon. For all......
September 03, 2018 Tim AnayaSan Francisco Mayor London Breed’s proposal to boost home building won’t alone relieve the city’ housing shortage. But as starts go, it’s not a bad one. Breed is rolling out a bill that would kill permits and inspection fees, eliminating “thousands o...
February 12, 2019 Kerry JacksonSome readers recoiled at my depiction last year of Gov. Bill Ritter’s Climate Action Plan as a “faith-based document” that barely hints at the “grueling acrobatics” needed to reach its goals of a 20 percent reduction in ...
May 02, 2008 Vincent CarrollNorthern California is a hotbed of modern, global technological innovation, particularly internet innovation. Yet, increasingly Washington, D.C. dictates the direction and velocity of innovation, often abetted by the very companies that gained from t...
October 24, 2017 Bartlett ClelandIn his inaugural address, new President Barack Obama said he intended to “restore science to its rightful place” in government. Several days later, Obama again claimed a change in approach, saying, “Rigid ideology has overruled sound science. Special...
February 17, 2009 Amy KaleitaEveryone who drives in California suspects that fuel prices here are painfully high. And their suspicions are well-founded. Only Hawaii has more expensive gasoline. Or did. Thanks to the 12-cents-a-gallon tax hike on gasoline that went into effect on...
November 09, 2017 Kerry JacksonOn the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision on Janus, the State Controller’s Office announced that beginning in July, it would stop deducting “fair share fees” from the paychecks of state workers who are not full union members. The fair share fee, ...
July 16, 2018 Rowena ItchonFiscal matters related to COVID-19 has dominated the budget discussions at the State Capitol this spring and summer. In recent weeks, there have been increasingly difficult political discussions over the Newsom administration’s COVID-19 budget spend...
September 01, 2020 Tim AnayaLast week, Gov. Gavin Newsom delivered his annual State of the State address at the State Capitol. And in an unusual twist, he devoted the entire address to one topic – homelessness. Typically, the State of the State outlines a governor’s policy wi...
February 25, 2020 Tim AnayaLast week, after newly-elected members of the Legislature raised their hands to take their oaths of office, many also took the opportunity to introduce their first bills of the legislative session. In a sea of costly new programs, prohibitions on peo...
December 12, 2018 Tim AnayaWhen Andy Puzder was 10, he went with his father, a Ford salesman, to deliver a new car to a wealthy customer. “Mr. Humphrey” lived in opulence on the east side of Cleveland. Puzder marveled at the treasure before him, the enormous house, the grand.....
July 18, 2018 Kerry JacksonNational media attention recently returned to UC Berkeley over the planned “Free Speech Week.” Following dueling press releases over whether the event would occur and who would speak, the event largely fizzled out. Ben Shaprio did speak on campus a ...
October 09, 2017 Tim AnayaEPA Administrator Scott Pruitt will make official on Tuesday what we knew all along – the Administration is officially withdrawing the controversial Clean Power Plan rule on power plant emissions. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has railed...
October 10, 2017 Wayne WinegardenIt’s a sad indictment of California’s political class, but often the Legislature’s top achievements are the things it didn’t get around to doing. Up until the final days of the legislation session, this year’s chief accomplishment looked like it woul...
September 15, 2017 Kerry JacksonRecently, I attended the graduation ceremony for the Discovery ChalleNGe Academy, which targets high school dropouts and produces quality-educated young people with strong values, life skills, and self-discipline. With so many children falling throu...
June 30, 2020 Lance Izumi“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases,” said Ronald Reagan, “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” Uber and Lyft are on the move. And guess what?......
March 05, 2019 Rowena ItchonWhen I was a junior speechwriter working in Governor Schwarzenegger’s administration, one of the great pleasures I had was working with and getting to know David Crane. David was the Governor’s advisor on economic issues and his office was right nex...
November 03, 2017 Tim AnayaIt seems clear that the first major penalty man will have to pay for his rapid consumption of the earth’s nonrenewable resources will be that of having to live in a world where his thoughts and actions are ever more strongly limited, where social org...
September 14, 2009 Robert P. MurphyCalifornia’s chronic water problems were once again national news when Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation establishing a code of water-use restrictions that would be more fitting for an undeveloped nation. As usual, policymakers chose the austerity ...
July 16, 2018 Kerry JacksonGrade 13. That’s what Californians will be funding if Governor Brown signs Assembly Bill 19, which provides a year of free tuition to anyone enrolling in a California community college, regardless of the student’s income. The bill isn’t intended to h...
September 21, 2017 Rowena ItchonCalifornia is in the midst of economic turmoil. Headlines shout daily about the plummeting dollar and home values, disappearing jobs, soaring fuel and food costs, and a growing massive state budget deficit. Apparently oblivious to the strain on Calif...
July 06, 2008 Thomas TantonDuring the recent election, the spin on Proposition 23 became drearily familiar. Voters who favored it were backing “greedy oil companies,” as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger put it, out to protect their own financial interests. Those who oppo...
November 21, 2010 Julie KasztonA recent Fox & Hounds Daily opinion piece by David Crane, economic advisor to Governor Schwarzenegger attempted to dismiss the contribution of AB 32 to the state’s high unemployment rate. AB 32 is California’s “Global Warming Solutions Act,” a b...
December 17, 2009 Thomas TantonJohn Stossel, ABC News’ co-anchor of “20/20” and a New York Times best-selling author, likes to take a skeptical look at a wide array of issues, but hold the phone on his new healthcare special — it was pulled to make room for yet more......
July 01, 2009 Dave EberhartOn November 2, Californians will have an unprecedented opportunity to vote on a ballot measure that will protect jobs and their quality of life. Proposition 23 would suspend implementation of AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, until the...
October 26, 2010 Pacific Research InstituteThe California Assembly voted last week to place on the November ballot an initiative to repeal Prop. 209, the 1996 constitutional amendment ending preferential treatment based on race and sex in public education, employment, and government contracti...
June 16, 2020 Rowena ItchonThere have decades of bipartisan rhetoric about the virtues of home ownership, with politicians competing with one another to see who can propose the worst ideas for responsible homeownership. Some policies, like preferential tax treatment and credit...
May 23, 2019 Damon DunnToday, thousands are gathering in San Francisco for a so-called “Global Climate Action Summit.” Co-hosted by Gov. Jerry Brown, several UN organizations and other leaders, it is billed as a “launchpad for deeper worldwide commitments and accelerated ...
September 11, 2018 Tim AnayaLast week, the Supreme Court issued a major decision in a case about online retailers collecting sales taxes, South Dakota v. Wayfair. As PRI’s Bartlett Cleland recently wrote in Fox and Hounds, “the case is centered around the notion that an entity ...
June 25, 2018 Tim AnayaSAN FRANCISCO — Is your food making the planet sick? Are your pork chops, your corn chips, your steaks, your breakfast cereal polluting the air, water and land that everyone on Earth depends on to sustain life? The answer, says a Pacific Research Ins...
December 06, 2010 Pacific Research InstituteLast week, I had the opportunity to attend a debate of the Democrat and Republican candidates for California Attorney General, which was sponsored by the Sacramento Press Club. The Republican and Democratic candidates could not present a starker cont...
March 26, 2018 Tim AnayaRecently, thousands of farm workers and their supporters hit the road in California’s Central Valley to raise awareness of water shortages in the region that are threatening the livelihoods and communities that rely heavily on irrigated crops. The fa...
April 21, 2009 Amy KaleitaThis is not the time to implement policies that will further cripple California’s economy and put a disproportionate financial burden on the state’s poor and elderly, but that is exactly what the California Air Resources Board is planning...
December 07, 2008 Thomas TantonThe California Air Resources Board has proposed a new mandate to require car companies to install metallic reflective windows, which CARB Chairwoman Mary Nichols describes as “a common-sense and cost-effective measure that will help cool the ca...
November 10, 2009 Pacific Research InstituteI recently read about a case in Berkeley where a hot dog vendor just trying to earn a few dollars was manhandled by city government. Rigoberto “Beto” Matias was selling bacon-wrapped hotdogs outside a Cal football game. A police officer approached Be...
October 23, 2017 Tim AnayaPolitical partisanship can be found in every part of society. What you say, or even what you do not say, is ripe for political criticism these days. It is no surprise then that social media, where a majority of the world devotes multiple hours each.....
July 07, 2020 Evan Harris
In his “Breaking Down Barriers to Opportunity” series, PRI’s Dr. Wayne Winegarden has argued that one of the most important ways that elected officials can help to lift people up the economy ladder is by embracing policies that encourage entrepreneur...
April 01, 2020 Tim AnayaCalifornians harboring dystopian fears would have us believe that the state is sowing the seeds of its own destruction by leading in the development of artificial intelligence. Consider state legislation introduced this year that would fine companies...
August 23, 2017 Bartlett ClelandRight by the Bay is celebrating (or lamenting) April Fool’s Day by creating the following quiz on weird and goofy laws beginning in 2019 in California. If you get a perfect score, you get a one-way ticket to Texas (April Fool’s!). True or False: Sur...
April 01, 2019 Rowena ItchonHumorist Will Rogers regularly uttered world-class comments, but few of his eminently quotable remarks can compete with his observation that a deadlocked Congress which can’t act “is the greatest blessing that could befall this country.” It’s temptin...
August 06, 2020 Kerry JacksonIf you think this is going to be one of those hard-hitting policy pieces that you get from the likes of Anaya and Jackson, or one of those brainy blogs from Winegarden. It’s not. It’s all about me, and my yearning for that fabulous, subsidized......
October 11, 2017 Rowena ItchonWith the mid-term elections now less than 100 days away, the siren-call for single-payer or “Medicare for All” continues. Fifty-one percent of those polled earlier this year by Kaiser support single payer, the highest number ever recorded. But as ...
August 15, 2018 Sally C. PipesSan Francisco Examiner, June 9, 2009 We hear it every day. News headlines read: “Global Warming Biggest Threat of 21st Century, Experts say.” (businessweek.com. May 13th, 2009. Gardner, Amanda). News anchors provide us with a choice, either we believ...
June 09, 2009 Blake YountCalifornia Attorney General Xavier Becerra has officially filed suit against Uber and Lyft for violating Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5). The action is a clear signal that the state’s policy leaders are determined to maximize the economic damage from this ill...
May 06, 2020 Wayne WinegardenIt’s one thing to be considered a Judicial Hellhole. It’s another thing altogether to hold that distinction year after year . . . after year. But, just as it is with so many state rankings, California isn’t a newcomer at the wrong end of a......
December 18, 2017 Kerry JacksonThe clock is ticking for trucking companies in the U.S. to comply with a federal mandate requiring drivers to stop logging their hours on the road with paper logs and switch to electronic logging devices (ELD) – and not everyone is happy about the ch...
November 07, 2017 Ben SmithwickLast week, the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that private sector unions can’t force workers to pay for union lobbying activities. Jeanette Geary, a Rhode Island nurse who is not a union member, waged a decade-long battle against the Unite...
September 24, 2020 Rowena ItchonThe government is not doing a very effective job of playing car salesman. Despite providing federal manufacturing grants and loans worth $40.7 billion and other $2 billion in federal tax credits to subsidize electric car purchases, electric cars, or ...
February 22, 2018 Tim AnayaThe United States government recently announced plans to look into allegations of anti-competitive behavior among agribusiness companies, particularly Monsanto, the ag biotechnology giant. As this action unfolds, policy makers should keep some realit...
December 17, 2009 Amy KaleitaFuel prices in California are soaring like it’s 1979. A gallon of regular gasoline was averaging $3.82 across the state on Oct. 18, nearly a full dollar higher than the national average, according to AAA. Only in Hawaii are prices higher. With the su...
October 22, 2018 Kerry JacksonThe old adage is April showers bring May flowers. Well, after a very wet winter, it looks like spring has finally sprung in California. As soon as the seasons change, Golden State drivers are typically hit with another unwelcome phenomenon brought ...
April 16, 2019 Tim AnayaThe prospects sound good but the conference got only half the story. Estimates of just how many jobs our push to go green may generate vary widely, but not all economists believe that there really will be any kind of green-job boom. More important is...
December 08, 2008 Thomas TantonCalifornia policymakers have been on overdrive in recent years pursuing a clean energy future for the Golden State. State policymakers have enacted scores of government mandates and programs to push employers and individuals to reduce emissions, incl...
March 07, 2018 Wayne WinegardenGov. Jerry Brown and some California lawmakers are pushing Golden State drivers to the fast lane of an all-electric car future. For example, San Francisco Democrat Phil Ting has introduced legislation to outlaw the sale of traditional gas-powered car...
April 10, 2018 Wayne WinegardenAfter being soundly defeated in the Senate 0-57 (43 Democrats voted “present”), the Green New Deal continues to languish in the House. Roll Call reported the following excuse from Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “I can’t say we’re going to take that and pass ...
June 19, 2019 Rowena ItchonPRI’s coverage of California’s poverty problem through various op-eds and a policy brief have drawn considerable attention. Most of it has been positive, but one California writer for the hard-left Mother Jones claimed that despite the point we made,...
January 29, 2018 Kerry JacksonA dashcam video of downtown Los Angeles on Christmas Day 2017 revealed the devastating reality of the city’s homelessness problem. The video, shot in the city’s Skid Row district, shows dozens of tents, makeshift shelters, and people walking aimlessl...
January 30, 2018 Ben SmithwickEnergy poverty is on the rise across Arizona today. If you spend more than 10 percent of your income on electricity, natural gas, and other household energy costs, then you are afflicted by energy poverty. It is a tragedy that forces some families to...
November 18, 2016 Wayne WinegardenDespite technological advancements to the movement of goods, trucks will still transport and deliver and incredible amount of goods in 2020. But automation and self-driving research are not the biggest threat to truckers anymore. California’s contest...
January 07, 2020 Evan HarrisAt what point did the lawmakers who voted for, and the governor who signed, California Assembly Bill 5 realize it’s lousy policy? It should have been the moment the idea was first conceived. But that didn’t happen, the legislation became law, and now...
February 11, 2020 Kerry JacksonThe great investor Warren Buffett once said, “Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.” UC President Janet Napolitan...
June 04, 2018 Rowena ItchonIn my last blog post, I previewed the Assembly’s unusual “Committee of the Whole” hearing on the state budget, comparing it to Seinfeld’s Festivus “Airing of Grievances.” Little did I know how clairvoyant I really was. Last Tuesday’s five hour sessio...
June 01, 2020 Tim AnayaWhen the California Air Resources Board opens its new headquarters in two years in Riverside, it will be basking in the radiance of the “world’s largest permanent collection of artworks addressing air quality and the effects of climate change.” The c...
November 20, 2019 Kerry JacksonEarth Day is fast approaching, yet despite the awareness this day brings, most people are powering their computers with electricity from coal-burning power plants, delivered by “dumb” networks. Change is long overdue, and it’s not a...
April 17, 2009 Sonia ArrisonDuring my recent vacation in Australia and New Zealand, my friends and I spent an enjoyable day in Melbourne while on a Tasmanian cruise. Whenever I visit a big city for the first time on a trip, I always book a survey tour to take......
November 14, 2017 Tim AnayaWhen I was in the investment industry in the 1990s, my friend Jeannette and I observed that after meetings and conferences, the top executives – mostly men but a few women — often played a round of golf. We knew a lot of bonding took......
October 03, 2018 Rowena ItchonAsia Sentinel (Hong Kong), 19 February 2008 The US decision to divert food crops for motor-fuel is proving a costly mistake – especially for Asia. What has long been predicted – that the US decision to push the use of corn to make biofuel would......
February 19, 2008 Pacific Research InstituteReeling from multiple massive state wildfires that its actions likely triggered, Pacific Gas & Electric, or PG&E, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this time last year. The investor-owned utility faces a June 30, 2020 deadline to come up with a...
February 12, 2020 Evan HarrisThe newspaper comic strip They’ll Do It Every Time that was published for nearly 80 years through 2008 “illustrated minor absurdities, frustrations, hypocrisies, ironies and misfortunes of everyday life,” says Wikipedia, typically showing “deceptive,...
November 14, 2019 Kerry Jackson
Having successfully outlawed plastic bags and straws, the next target of California lawmakers, who seem intent on criminalizing as many consumer conveniences as possible, just might be those foam containers used to hold take-out food. Polystyrene, of...
October 24, 2018 Kerry JacksonFormer Connecticut State Treasurer and founder and president of the Institute for Pension Fund Integrity Christopher Bancroft Burnham recently cited Dr. Wayne Winegarden’s study showing how environmental, social, and governance (ESG) funds unde...
May 28, 2020 Pacific Research InstituteIn this November election, it’s unfortunate that there’s only one seat up on the BART board (for non-Bay Area readers, BART is the region’s electric train line), because if I had one command as Queen for a day – a question Tim Anaya likes to......
October 16, 2018 Rowena ItchonJust six years after declaring bankruptcy due to a 15-year spending binge, Stockton is now exploring creative new ways of spending again. This time, it’s a one-year experiment to give several dozen Stockton families $500 a month, with no strings att...
February 05, 2018 Rowena ItchonIn 2006, at the end of his movie An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore offered a number of things that the average person could do to decrease their impact on global climate change. They could ride a bike or take mass transit, the former vice-president advi...
July 15, 2008 Amy KaleitaBefore any policy is changed, the potential economic consequences that they can cause should be considered. The Community Reinvestment Act and other affordable housing regulations, for instance, were supposed to increase loan availability to under-se...
June 20, 2013 Wayne WinegardenThere is little doubt that the U.S. needs comprehensive tax reform. The corporate income tax system is globally uncompetitive; the personal income tax system is so complicated that even the IRS can’t answer taxpayers’ questions. The right reform impl...
August 24, 2017 Wayne WinegardenWhat are the legitimate functions of good government? James Madison said they are “to protect property of every sort.” “The rights of persons and the rights of property are the objects for the protection of which government was instituted,” he said i...
September 05, 2017 Kerry JacksonBack in 2017, concerned over the sclerotic growth of the U.S. economy, PRI published a series of studies titled Beyond the New Normal by economist and PRI senior fellow Wayne Winegarden. Up until that point, annual real GDP growth averaged just 1.9 p...
February 13, 2020 Rowena ItchonPresumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden last week unveiled his version of the Green New Deal. The plan, which can be summed up as AOC meets CA, shows just how far Biden is willing to lunge toward the left coast’s environmental agenda. AOC’s Green N...
July 23, 2020 Rowena ItchonRight by the Bay has been following Sacramento’s tax raising schemes here, here, and here. But the state’s tax marauding politicians aren’t the only ones we should be worried about. Presidential candidate Joe Biden also wants Washington’s share of ...
September 02, 2020 Rowena ItchonIn October, San Francisco’s newest garbage management law goes into effect, potentially fining residents up to $100 per violation – businesses up to $500 – for failing to separate compostable garbage from their trash. Fines can also be incurred if ga...
September 17, 2009 Amy KaleitaThe California Energy Commission recently considered a proposal to take control of home thermostats, a move that drew national attention and public protests. The CEC has now backed off,-but the story remains instructive for California consumers and p...
February 01, 2008 Thomas TantonRenewable portfolio standards (RPS) can be considered the flagship environmental policy for state government in the US. The RPS programs have been adopted by 29 states and apply to half of the national electricity market. The staple of any RPS progra...
August 08, 2019 Evan HarrisOne of the most contentious battles of this year’s legislative session was AB 5, with labor and gig economy companies duking out over the definition of who is an employee and who is an independent contractor. In this battle over the “new economy” and...
September 26, 2019 Tim AnayaIn the early days of the pandemic lockdowns, San Francisco Mayor London Breed declared a temporary moratorium on evictions of small and mid-size businesses “due to a loss of income related to lost revenue or other economic impacts caused by the COVID...
June 17, 2020 Kerry JacksonAbout the same time two of California’s largest cities were named among the seven worst-run municipalities in the country, we learn that the state’s — and the country’s — largest county had the worst population outflow in the U.S. in 2018. The livin’...
July 15, 2019 Kerry JacksonWatch our new animated video to learn how breaking down barriers in state insurance adjuster licensing could speed up response times for disaster claims and everyday claims, lower costs, and provide job opportunities. It’s based off of Wayne Wi...
February 12, 2018 Pacific Research InstituteOn July 29, California’s Attorney General Jerry Brown said he will sue to block a proposed water-bottling operation in Northern California, unless its effects on global warming are evaluated. Nestlé Waters North America wants to pump 200 million gall...
August 14, 2008 Thomas TantonWe are often critical of the way Gov. Jerry Brown governs and the ideas that he proposes. He too often leans on the progressive playbook. But we’ve not been afraid to say that he’s right when he’s right, and today he’s right. The governor is......
December 01, 2017 Kerry JacksonGov. Jerry Brown’s 2018-19 budget proposal is projecting a $6.1 billion surplus by July 1, 2019, further evidence that the taxpayers of California have been overcharged. But there will be no rebates. Brown said at his press conference Wednesday that,...
January 11, 2018 Kerry JacksonAt long last, Gov. Newsom and Democratic leaders have reached a budget agreement. Now lawmakers will race to pass the final legislation as the clock ticks down toward the June 30th deadline for the Gov. to sign a balanced budget. For many days, News...
June 23, 2020 Tim AnayaOn Monday, Gov. Newsom announced via press release that he had signed the 2020-21 state budget. Naturally, much of the budget press coverage typically focuses on the debate between the Governor and the Legislature and the total state spending picture...
July 02, 2020 Tim AnayaLast week, the center of the budget universe moved upstairs at the State Capitol as budget subcommittees in the Senate and Assembly held hearings to explore all aspects of Gov. Newsom’s plan to close the budget deficit he pegs at $54 billion. A few i...
May 26, 2020 Tim AnayaHome ownership provides basic financial literacy, drives wealth creation, and increases free cash flow for individuals and families. However, it can be difficult to differentiate between having surplus cash and wealth. Having surplus cash is havin...
July 11, 2019 Damon DunnOne such environmental policy under question is the Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32) which was signed into law in 2006. The law attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through a cap and trade program. The Global Warming Solutions Act is the la...
April 23, 2009 Thomas TantonTwo new regulations suggest that California leads the nation in mandates that inconvenience its residents while gaining little for the environment. First, consider the California Energy Commission’s unanimous vote Wednesday to effectively ban m...
November 18, 2009 Robert P. MurphyOne of my all-time favorite shows is “The McLaughlin Group.” I used to love watching Dr. McLaughlin spar over the years with the likes of Pat Buchanan, Eleanor Clift, Clarence Page, Freddy “the Beadle” Barnes, Mor-ton Kondracke, the late great Jack G...
December 22, 2017 Tim AnayaWhat’s in President Trump’s tax returns? It’s a mystery that has stumped cable television pundits since he refused to release them during the 2016 campaign. At times, the furor has been so high that I’m surprised that Matlock or Jessica Fletcher we...
July 17, 2019 Tim AnayaI have spent my entire 35 year professional life developing and implementing energy policies vital to our state. So it pains me to now see California taking an unfortunate misstep: embracing participation in the Western Climate Initiative. WCI, devel...
March 05, 2009 Thomas TantonMost of the California business community is at the mercy of California’s progressive state legislature. It is easy to forget, especially with Silicon Valley pumping out inflated IPOs, that small businesses are the backbone of the economy. The U.S. S...
September 23, 2020 Evan HarrisEarlier this year, Governor Gavin Newsom proposed a so-called “data dividend” because, he says, “California’s consumers should also be able to share in the wealth that is created from their data…” The Governor provided almost no details then, and few...
May 14, 2019 Bartlett ClelandEven though the state has slipped in the rankings over the past several years, California is still an innovation hub with an economy that is firmly grounded in innovative industries from videogames to internet, and technology hardware to movies. Ther...
August 13, 2019 Bartlett ClelandA Washington newspaper has reported that U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the socialist from Vermont, has received 300 endorsements from California. That goes a long to explaining why things keep going wrong in the state. “The campaign released endorsements...
January 09, 2020 Kerry JacksonNearly three dozen bills intended to revise or repeal Assembly Bill 5, which restricts workers’ freedom and could potentially kill the burgeoning gig economy, have been introduced in Sacramento. Here is some of the latest, and most important, news ab...
March 12, 2020 Kerry JacksonThe California State Assembly is refusing to provide the names of assemblymen who voted to ban oil recovery off the coast of Santa Barbara. Twenty-eight members supported the ban, but their votes cannot be found in the official state database. Assemb...
November 01, 2009 Pacific Research InstituteThe California Air Resources Board has set a powerful regulatory force in motion by approving an outline for meeting the carbon dioxide reductions required by a state law aimed at combating global warming. The outline, known as a “scoping plan,” is r...
February 01, 2009 Thomas TantonEarlier this month, The New York Times gave space to a climate activist who argued that policymakers must “Free California of Fossil Fuels.” Six days later, the Times’ California Today feature covered the state’s “Move to Mandate 100% Carbon-Free Ele...
August 27, 2018 Kerry JacksonThere are no fortune tellers at PRI, but it isn’t hard to foresee what is likely to happen in California in 2018. First, it’s a sure bet that the Legislature will pass a boxcar load of unneeded, heavy-handed and odious policies when lawmakers reconve...
December 28, 2017 Kerry JacksonLast week, an investment management and advisory firm comprised of professors from California State University, Sacramento, released a report attempting to estimate the costs to small businesses – and therefore to California’s economy – of implementi...
July 21, 2009 Amy KaleitaCalifornia’s 2018 crime data has been released and the news is mostly encouraging, though a bit mixed. The violent crime rate is slightly down (1.5%) after growing for three straight years, and four of the last seven, according to data released this ...
July 22, 2019 Kerry JacksonCalifornia officials want to eventually force everyone on the road out of their gasoline- and diesel-powered automobiles and into electric vehicles. But it’s a radical shift that can’t be decreed into existence overnight. So, expect a boost in the go...
October 17, 2018 Kerry JacksonThe state of California, which can’t keep the lights on thanks to political interference in energy generation, nor build enough homes because government has poisoned the housing market, is going into the pharmaceutical manufacturing business. But the...
September 09, 2020 Kerry JacksonCalifornians who are struggling to make ends meet during these tough economic times are going to be in for sticker shock come July 1: gas prices will rise yet again. What’s behind the increase, you ask? It’s not due to rising demand as people begin...
June 29, 2020 Wayne WinegardenAs California’s unemployment rate hovers above 12 percent, even the state’s Democratic leaders – notorious for regulating, taxing and complaining about California’s business community – are talking about jobs. They are championing t...
October 22, 2011 Steven GreenhutIf you were able to make it through California Governor Gavin Newsom’s almost three-hour budget briefing, you’ve probably been following the enormous funding proposals included in the $222.2 billion budget estimate. You can save 167 minute of your ti...
January 21, 2020 Evan Harris
Sacramento Democrats have drawn up a Green New Deal for California, which, the public is being told, is necessary to prevent a global warming crisis. The usual empty talking points that are poor substitutes for climate facts have been strung together...
January 15, 2020 Kerry JacksonCalifornians regard themselves as members of the environmentally aware aristocracy. Polls consistently show that large numbers of Golden Staters agonize over Gaia’s plight. An SFGate headline last year that declared “Californians put high priority on...
July 23, 2018 Kerry JacksonGov. Gavin Newsom will not after all appoint a homelessness czar, as he had promised he would during the 2018 campaign. Now, if he would just disband the homelessness task force that was formed in the spring. While running for governor last year as t...
September 16, 2019 Kerry JacksonAdvocates have fought to make California a part-time legislature for a while now. Strangely, the coronavirus pandemic has given these advocates what they want in the interest of public health. The California State Legislature has largely been sidelin...
July 22, 2020 Evan HarrisA few weeks ago, I wrote a piece on the National Council on Teacher Quality’s excellent research on California’s failed teacher quality policies, and now the organization has followed up by releasing a new analysis showing that California is AWOL whe...
October 29, 2019 Lance IzumiMore than a half-century ago, in one of the most famous movie lines of all time, Dustin Hoffman character Benjamin Braddock, fresh out of college, received some unsolicited career advice. “I want to say one word to you. Just one word,” Mr. McGuire to...
May 06, 2019 Kerry JacksonTax reform has taken center stage in Washington. Just last week, the House Ways and Means Committee approved the House’s tax reform proposal, while the Senate released its own tax reform proposal. If you picked up a newspaper in California, you would...
November 16, 2017 Tim AnayaWater policy is one of those topics that can leave newcomers and casual listeners feeling inundated. The regulations that govern state and federal water policy are laced with a flood of acronyms and terms, with a steady gush of changes to state water...
September 09, 2019 Evan HarrisThere’s a new target in California’s war on plastics: those handy bottles of shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and lotion that hotels hand out to guests. Assembly Bill 1162, approved by the Natural Resources Committee and surely to get the same favora...
April 23, 2019 Kerry JacksonNot often does Sacramento get it right in the eyes of the defenders of liberty. A bill allowing athletes at public and private California colleges to earn money from endorsements, however, is likely to earn their approval. Senate Bill 206, the Fair P...
July 09, 2019 Kerry JacksonCalifornia may soon become the first state to mandate solar panels be installed on all new homes, apartments, and condominiums. The California Energy Commission passed a building code regulation requiring all homes constructed in 2020 or later to hav...
June 21, 2018 Pacific Research InstituteAnother national list, another nearly rock-bottom ranking for California. It’s become too predictable. When WalletHub, a prolific producer of lists, says that California is 48th among the states on “taxpayer return on investment” (forget for the mome...
July 16, 2020 Kerry JacksonThe California state motto is “Eureka,” Greek for “I have found it.” Says State Symbols USA, “famed Greek mathematician Archimedes is said to have exclaimed ‘Eureka!’ when he finally discovered a method for determining the purity of gold.” The motto ...
October 21, 2019 Kerry JacksonCalifornia policymakers have indicated that when the state converts to a renewables-only energy framework in 2045, wind and sun will be the only sources permitted. Categorical renewables such as hydroelectric power and nuclear will not be considered....
September 24, 2019 Kerry JacksonIt would be neither profound nor unique to note that the California dream, immortalized by John and Michelle Phillips’ famed lyrics, ain’t what it used to be. It would be nothing more than a mere statement of a fact which is well-known but neverthele...
July 30, 2020 Kerry JacksonIn June 2011, a group of Republican lawmakers gathered at a Ford dealership in downtown Sacramento for a celebratory press conference. They were gathered to celebrate what they were calling, “Freedom from Higher Taxes Day,” the day when temporary tax...
July 01, 2019 Tim AnayaWhile visiting yet another charred part of California last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he was “a little bit exhausted that we have to continue to debate this issue. This a climate damn emergency.” It’s a statement he can make confident that few of C...
September 15, 2020 Kerry JacksonGov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers have made it clear they believe rent control is one of the solutions to California’s housing shortage. According to the Los Angeles Times, an agreement announced late on the Friday evening before the Labor Day weekend ...
September 10, 2019 Kerry JacksonDecember is about half gone, and, as the Counting Crows’ Adam Duritz once sang, “it’s getting cold in California.” In another song from the same 1996 album Duritz also sang that it’s been “a long December and there’s reason to believe may...
December 19, 2019 Kerry JacksonCalifornia’s Great Blackout of 2019 has begun as the lights keep going out for millions across the state’s northern stretches. What should be the past now seems to be the future. Pacific Gas and Electric began shutting down power early the morning of...
October 30, 2019 Kerry JacksonEnvironment & Climate News (Heartland Institute), April 1, 2009 The California State Lands Commission has rejected an agreement by industry and environmental groups that would have allowed environmentally friendly oil production off the coast of...
April 01, 2009 Pacific Research InstituteEven after all the spending cuts and state worker furlough days, the state continues to be short on cash. The Assembly’s vote against the offshore drilling lease is troubling because it seems to lack any acknowledgment of California’s dire position b...
July 28, 2009 Thomas TantonThe California state Senate has passed and sent to the Assembly a bill to ban the use of food packaging containing perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). Senate Bill 1313 would ban persons and companies from manufacturing...
July 01, 2008 Thomas TantonLast month the D.C. Court of Appeals settled, for now, the question of how much freedom consumers will be guaranteed to make their internet experience the one they want. The Court upheld the current Federal Communication Commission’s Restoring Intern...
November 21, 2019 Bartlett ClelandSince 2011, the California State Legislature has been itching to bring back redevelopment agencies. Governor Jerry Brown’s nixing of the 70-year-old program scored the California state budget several billion dollars during the Great Recession in 2011...
September 19, 2019 Evan HarrisThe results of the 2019 National Assessment for Educational Progress, often called the “Nation’s Report Card,” came out recently and California’s scores once again tanked, with one of the likely causes being the national Common Core standards and ali...
November 04, 2019 Lance IzumiEPA stresses national solution to national issue (Chicago, Illinois – January 3, 2008) On Wednesday, January 2, California, along with 15 other states, sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, alleging EPA unlawfully rejected California&#...
January 03, 2008 Pacific Research InstituteIt didn’t take long for a California Supreme Court decision to start claiming victims. Bottle & Barlow, a “get loose stay sharp” joint on trendy R Street in Sacramento, where a gentleman can sip whisky and also be stylishly shorn, has lost its en...
September 18, 2018 Kerry JacksonLast week, the California Supreme Court heard the case Cal Fire Local 2881 v. CalPERS which challenged the 2013 law (the California Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act or PEPRA) that eliminated state employees’ ability to add up to five years of emp...
December 13, 2018 Rowena ItchonCalifornia’s Air Resources Board has approved a landmark rule mandating a statewide cut in greenhouse gas emissions from transportation fuels through 2020. The sweeping regulation targets carbon emissions from the production and burning of gasoline a...
July 01, 2009 Thomas TantonWhile California’s teacher unions are winning expensive battles on the strike lines and are flexing their political muscle in Sacramento, new research shows that state teacher-quality policies are failing to ensure that every public-school classroom ...
October 08, 2019 Lance IzumiJust days after signing legislation committing the state to 100 percent renewable sources for electricity, Gov. Jerry Brown hosted a grandiose climate summit in San Francisco. Noticeably absent from the conference was even the smallest dose of health...
September 25, 2018 Kerry JacksonCalifornia, the Los Angeles Times recently reported, is building a “non-plastic future.” The state has outlawed or restricted single-use plastic bags, plastic drinking straws, and plastic cutlery. Future targets: plastic detergent bottles, unattached...
April 15, 2019 Kerry Jackson“If I am elected, the bald will grow thick hair.” Alas, I am not a candidate for anything, and so the bald will have to continue their suffering in silence. And, frankly, were I campaigning for a position of public trust, I would lose badly,......
October 11, 2010 Benjamin ZycherWhat happens when environmental fashion collides with a state’s desperate need for jobs and economic growth? That question will be put to the test when Californians vote November 2 on a ballot measure that would suspend the Golden State’s...
October 18, 2010 Pacific Research InstituteSacramento hasn’t yet outlawed gasoline- and diesel-driven automobiles. But it’s on the agenda. In the meantime, the state remains committed to former Gov. Jerry Brown’s goal of flooding California roads with zero-emissions vehicles. The transition, ...
February 06, 2019 Kerry JacksonKey lawmakers are now promoting California’s energy and global warming policies as a model for the federal government and other States to follow. Thomas Tanton’s talk will review California’s policies and show that they have had significant costs as ...
March 31, 2008 Pacific Research InstituteRecently, I gave a seminar presentation on my research on underperforming regular public schools in middle-class and more affluent neighborhoods in California, which allowed me to do some updates based on the most recent data. The seminar, sponsored ...
July 03, 2019 Lance IzumiIf approved by the California electorate in two weeks, Proposition 23 would suspend the implementation of the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (“AB32”) until the state unemployment rate declines to 5.5% or less for four con...
October 20, 2010 Benjamin ZycherLast week, I had the chance to see the new movie “The Greatest Showman” about P.T. Barnum and how his dreams to set up his famous circus became a reality. Hugh Jackman and the very entertaining cast deliver a crowd-pleasing and empowering performanc...
January 12, 2018 Tim AnayaIf someone tells you that you can get something for nothing, you might ask that person if that’s a subprime mortgage security he or she is selling — or whether they work for the California Air Resources Board. The board’s new “economic” study b...
October 02, 2008 Thomas TantonOn Friday, the Senate achieved the nearly-impossible and passed long-overdue tax reform legislation. While the legislation will surely be changed in the conference committee, whatever final legislation emerges will provide tax relief for many America...
December 04, 2017 Tim AnayaOutside a few conspiracy theorists, no one believes the COVID-19 lockdowns are a test run for eventually shuttering economic sectors to mitigate global warming. That said, the climate alarmists have surely been watching the public’s reaction, and the...
May 13, 2020 Kerry JacksonThe flood of lousy legislation that has poured out of Sacramento for the last two decades or so truly astonishes in its volume. As fourth-rate as the lawmaking has been, though, nothing has been worse than Assembly Bill 5, an existential threat to bo...
December 02, 2019 Kerry JacksonCalifornia has lived on the trope of being the hub of technology startups and innovation for decades. California’s economic success has long been touted and celebrated, none more so than the technology gold rush in the Bay Area. But despite Californi...
July 16, 2019 Evan HarrisCalifornia’s runaway housing prices caused by a policy-created shortage of homes will be getting a tailwind in a little more than a year. Beginning on Jan. 1, 2020, every home built in the state, including condominiums and low-rise apartments, will h...
December 17, 2018 Kerry JacksonIf there was any doubt about the economic success of state-mandated green programs, it was erased this week after a state Senate hearing about the future of alternate fuels. By the end of the four-hour session, it was clear that environmental special...
October 30, 2011 Katy GrimesWhen it comes to saving the planet, some of the most popular weapons are policies to promote energy efficiency. As Tim Greeff, deputy legislative director of the League of Conservation Voters recently quipped, Efficiency is always the cheapest, clea...
November 12, 2013 Kenneth GreenEvery Californian wants to conserve energy and see cleaner air and water in the Golden State. But in their quest to safeguard the state’s environment for future generations, Sacramento policymakers have put in place an overzealous regulatory scheme t...
December 21, 2018 Wayne WinegardenWhen asked which factors influence their decisions about locating their businesses in California, the top concerns, according to a group of surveyed executives, are housing and real estate costs. No surprise, there. This state’s housing crunch is an ...
March 06, 2018 Kerry JacksonSen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat from San Francisco, is one of the more active members of the California Legislature in terms of pursuing bills in hopes of easing the state’s housing crisis. But with that drive comes controversy. As he did last year, Wi...
April 25, 2019 Kerry JacksonThe Sacramento Bee has come up with one of the more interesting lists we’ve seen lately. It’s a catalog, via video, of “some of the most left-leaning laws that have come out of Sacramento since the Democrats” — who are enjoying “their biggest l...
May 08, 2019 Kerry JacksonCalifornia’s coronavirus pandemic lockdown isn’t over. There was even a partial reversal of the state’s reopening on the first day of July when Gov. Gavin Newsom hit the “dimmer switch.” But not much can come between California and its plastic bag ba...
July 13, 2020 Kerry JacksonStep one in any recovery program is to admit that the problem exists. And, make no mistake about it, California’s public pensions are addicted to debt. Solving this debt crisis requires political courage to implement fundamental reforms, which is why...
July 31, 2018 Wayne WinegardenIf there was one constant in the national media coverage of Super Tuesday, it was criticism of California’s election system. More than one observer commented on the fact that California’s heavy use of vote-by-mail ballots meant that hundreds of thous...
March 11, 2020 Tim AnayaCalifornia is proving once again that it’s the worst place to do business in America. This time, the state is attempting to collect up to eight years of back taxes from Amazon sellers whose products were temporarily stored in Amazon warehouses throug...
March 26, 2019 Rowena ItchonThe final gavel fell last week on the 2020 legislative session. Cut short by seven weeks due to the coronavirus, lawmakers were forced to take a backseat to Gov. Newsom, who made use of his wide-ranging emergency powers to lock down businesses to st...
September 08, 2020 Rowena ItchonAs the Barack Obama administration takes the reins on energy policy, Californians such as Lawrence-Berkeley National Lab Director Steven Chu, ascending to Department of Energy secretary, and Rep. Henry Waxman, becoming chair of the House Energy &...
March 01, 2009 Thomas TantonThe coronavirus has hit Southern California especially hard. With businesses forced to close their doors to customers, many have shuttered for good unable to handle the sharp downturn in income. As a result, more than 3.6 million Californians filed...
June 18, 2020 Wayne WinegardenLast month, California achieved another first – first in the nation to implement statewide vote-by-mail due to the coronavirus pandemic. There will still be voting locations for those with disabilities or who need language help, but all active voters...
August 12, 2020 Rowena ItchonNew York Times, August 3, 2009 Californians’ eagerness to battle global warming seems to be cooling a bit: The latest survey on the state’s environmental attitudes, released on Wednesday, showed that 47 percent consider the threat of global warming v...
July 30, 2009 Felicity BarringerPeople frequently argue that California should be the model for the nation’s energy use, because it has managed to keep per capita energy consumption flat over the past couple of decades. Not so fast, says Tom Tanton of the Pacific Research Ins...
April 04, 2008 Pacific Research InstituteCalPERS and CalSTRS – the two largest public employee pension funds in both California and the nation –just announced their annual investment returns for the 2018-19 fiscal year. Once again, it’s not good news for California taxpayers. Both funds re...
August 12, 2019 Tim AnayaThe COVID-19 recession has fueled volatility in the financial markets. Investment portfolios saw sharp drops in March and April but have rebounded recently as the economy opened up in some areas. This volatility has negatively impacted public pensio...
July 27, 2020 Tim AnayaWhen rumors began circulating in late February that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was about to issue an executive order to study options for a peripheral canal that would divert water from the Sacramento River around the delicate Sacramen...
April 15, 2008 Amy KaleitaWall Street Journal, September 21, 2009 No: Alternatives Are Too Expensive The U.S. and Western Europe can point to a remarkable achievement over the past 40 years: significant reductions in air pollution with only a modest effect on our economic gro...
September 21, 2009 Steven F. HaywardLast week, PRI held its inaugural “California Ideas in Action” policy conference in Sacramento. A capacity crowd came together near the State Capitol for a half-day conference exploring how free-market ideas can address California’s most pressing cha...
March 07, 2019 Tim AnayaSACRAMENTO – California sea lions sometimes swim some 90 miles up the Sacramento River, passing the state capitol on their journey. A local fisherman, Mr. Larry Legans, has been accused of shooting a sea lion for consuming the fish he caught. Mr. Leg...
May 12, 2010 K. Lloyd BillingsleySpeaker Pelosi and her allies in Congress received significant pollical pushback for using the COVID-19 crisis to enact their budget wish list in the $2 billion “phase 3” stimulus. Recently, Rowena Itchon wrote on Right by the Bay about tens of milli...
April 28, 2020 Tim AnayaOh Canada, here I come! Well, not really. At least not permanently. This week I’m in Montreal and Quebec City for summer vacation. Before leaving, I decided to check out how the U.S. compares economically to Canada, and there’s no better source than ...
July 30, 2018 Rowena ItchonRightly or wrongly, Global Warming offers disaster for our planet. Countering it has become a consuming concern. Emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) focus on carbon dioxide. “A reduction in carbon emissions has become an end in itself,” observes Bjor...
July 01, 2008 Natalie SirkinIn a review of the claims made by the Western Climate Initiative, the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University in Boston identified several flaws made by the seven-state consortium, calling into question claimed cost savings ranging between $11.4 ...
March 23, 2009 Thomas TantonEncore Online (Wilmington, NC), June 29, 2009 While most Americans are distracted by the situation in Iran and the vital current healthcare debates, Barack Obama and his friends in Congress are attempting to rush through one of the most draconian rea...
June 29, 2009 Pacific Research InstituteDownload the PDF When the Legislature declared a moratorium on cities enacting soda taxes, it felt like a win for freedom and a pushback of interventionism. But the busybodies never give up and they plow a fertile field in California, which has no ri...
July 26, 2018 Kerry JacksonDOWNLOAD THE PDF As if they didn’t have enough to shocks in their lives already, Californians recently woke up to find that Governor Newsom and the Legislature had defunded schoolchildren in the state budget. But the children are now fighting back a...
August 20, 2020 Lance Izumi
Download the Brief Introduction Pacific Gas and Electric of San Francisco began in October 2019 a series of electricity blackouts called “public safety power shutoffs.” The objective was to prevent its equipment from starting wildfires during hot, dr...
November 07, 2019 Kerry JacksonIt is no coincidence that California’s housing prices began to diverge from the rest of the country in 1970 – the very year that the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) was enacted. According to California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst,...
February 20, 2019 Daniel KolkeyDownload the PDF In late May, a panel of federal judges resurrected a couple of previously dismissed climate change lawsuits filed by San Francisco and Oakland, and also allowed six other community-based suits to go forward. The plaintiffs aren’t con...
June 11, 2020 Kerry JacksonDOWNLOAD THE PDF One of the several responses to the death of George Floyd has been activists’ demand to defund police departments. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti was one of the first mayors to surrender to the mob and pledge that he would move a......
July 06, 2020 Kerry JacksonDownload the PDF California’s “bullet” train to nowhere keeps going — nowhere. Unless tearing down a bridge just to rebuild it is somewhere. Construction of an overpass near Fresno was scrapped late last year—yes, we’re learning about this just...
June 27, 2018 Kerry JacksonDOWNLOAD PDF California is the most fun state in the country. So says the website WalletHub. It can’t be fun for everyone, though. Many would say living in California is a miserable existence. If the standard for fun is measured by the vast opportuni...
July 18, 2019 Kerry JacksonDownload the PDF California, not West Virginia, not Mississippi, has the highest poverty rate among the 50 states. Blame policymakers who, rather than solving the problem, have inflamed it. In fact, California officials have gone out of their way to ...
September 20, 2018 Kerry JacksonDOWNLOAD THE PDF Keeping track of the many informative lists in which California ranks at or near the bottom is a wearying task. It is also discouraging. This state, once the envy of all others, is losing its luster because policymakers continue to t...
November 06, 2018 Kerry JacksonDOWNLOAD THE BRIEF California lawmakers won’t give up on their crusade to force everyone in the state into electric cars (before eventually removing us out of our cars altogether). That electric vehicles neither sell nor perform up to reasonable expe...
October 01, 2019 Kerry JacksonDOWNLOAD THE PDF It was inevitable. California lawmakers’ assault on choice continues in 2019. The plastic-bag ban already in effect is not enough to satisfy their appetite for micromanaging others’ lives. After successfully outlawing single-use plas...
March 25, 2019 Kerry JacksonDownload the PDF The rest of the country wasn’t surprised when California recently considered becoming the first state in the country to tax text messages. It almost seems as if there is a group of unelected bureaucrats that does nothing but cloister...
January 16, 2019 Kerry JacksonDOWNLOAD THE PDF Jerry Brown left office in January as one of the most popular governors in California history. He also left successor Gavin Newsom with a few headaches. Among the more prominent unresolved issues are the high-speed rail project, the ...
May 15, 2019 Kerry Jackson
Download the Brief California is destined for yet another energy crisis, which, like the drought that’s been scorching the state, will be man-made. Shortages can be avoided, but that will require lawmakers to think in ways that few have engaged in in...
January 10, 2017 Kerry JacksonDownload the PDF They are not as unpopular in California as President Trump is, but private prisons are becoming a preferred target of politicians. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has a large blue-plate special of problems to solve, is at the forefront of a c...
April 18, 2019 Kerry JacksonDOWNLOAD THE PDF In Gov. Jerry Brown’s California, all is nearly well. He led off his State of the State address with an assurance that “California is prospering.” He bragged about jobs created and personal income growth on his watch, and congratulat...
February 07, 2018 Kerry JacksonDownload PDF Originally published in PRI’s Impact magazine, Summer 2018 An article that posits California as the model for the country’s future recently picked up some traffic, thanks to an affirming tweet from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who called it ...
August 30, 2018 Kerry JacksonDownload the Brief Sacramento’s response to President Trump’s Inauguration Day was to release the latest version of its heavy-handed plan to stop global warming. The state’s updated approach to environmental policy will be about as effective in stopp...
February 21, 2017 Kerry JacksonREAD THE PDF For a large majority of Americans, their home is their most valuable asset, while also serving as a major portion of their retirement portfolio. For others, owning their home provides a source of stability and community for themselves an...
June 20, 2019 Damon DunnThis legislative session, California could take an important step toward creating a true water market to meet the needs of cities, farmers and the environment with the Open and Transparent Water Data Act (Assembly Bill 1755). It’s hard to solve a pro...
May 13, 2016 Arthur LafferOpen the PDF California lawmakers have had several chances to handcuff payday lenders, and in each instance, they were either unable to, or chose not to. Naturally, some see this as a series of missed opportunities. We understand the reaction. But th...
August 14, 2018 Kerry JacksonDOWNLOAD THE PDF Flippy, California’s and the world’s first automated fast-food grill master, has been fired. But after a few tweaks, he will be rehired. The same can’t be said about the humans who will lose their jobs to robots due to the state’s mi...
May 14, 2018 Kerry JacksonNearly two decades ago, before “ban everything” fever was sweeping through California, San Francisco committed to eliminating a staple of human progress: the modern landfill. The idea, concocted in 2002, was to reach a “zero waste” existence by 2020,...
December 12, 2019 Kerry JacksonDOWNLOAD THE PDF There is currently a trend toward misunderstanding or misrepresenting science, and it starts early. A grade-school teacher asked the class whether a whale is a fish or a mammal. One boy raised his hand and offered, “Let’s take a vote...
February 06, 2019 Robert Wager and Henry I. MillerLos Angeles County has adopted a “sustainability” program that officials expect “to enhance the well-being of every community in the county while reducing damage to the natural environment and adapting to the changing climate.” This is considered sma...
August 28, 2019 Kerry JacksonThe backlash over California’s Assembly Bill 5, legislation that robs workers of their freedom, was likely not expected by lawmakers. They’re accustomed to an electorate that agreeably goes along with whatever policies they impose, no matter how inva...
February 10, 2020 Kerry JacksonDownload the PDF California has declared itself a sanctuary state, where illegal immigrants are sheltered from federal law. The urge to “resist” President Trump runs so red hot in California that Gov. Jerry Brown pardoned two immigrants from Cambodia...
January 17, 2018 Kerry JacksonHousing affordability is once again at the top of Sacramento Democrats’ policy agenda this session. Several bills have already been proposed to try and bring down state housing costs. Addressing the state’s housing crisis is now running into conflic...
January 23, 2020 Tim AnayaSan Francisco—Many policies aiming to “green” the American car culture may do just the opposite, according to a new study from the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a California-based free market think tank. Car-tastrophe: How federal policy can help...
February 14, 2011 Amy KaleitaData privacy is one of the defining public policy debates of the new decade. As other countries push data privacy regulation heralded as global standards, California is headed in the other direction with the rollout of the state’s Consumer Privacy Ac...
February 24, 2020 Evan HarrisUnions have long had government-protected privileges that no other institution or organization has. They hold monopolies as exclusive collective bargaining units; can collect dues before paychecks are even issued (government is the only other institu...
December 05, 2017 Kerry JacksonAs the United States tries to reduce emissions and become more energy independent, energy efficiency will likely play a major part in achieving these goals. But should the government be incentivizing consumers to lead more efficient lifestyles? Durin...
April 08, 2008 Pacific Research InstituteWhen I was a child, my father took me fishing on the Detroit River, where we caught plenty of perch and silver bass, but no whitefish. I might catch one in 2008 because whitefish are reproducing in the Detroit River for the first time since......
April 28, 2008 K. Lloyd BillingsleyThis year is the 40th anniversary of the Cuyahoga River fire, an event that has come to symbolize environmental degradation. The current condition of the river symbolizes something else worth recalling in the wake of Earth Day — environmental i...
May 27, 2009 K. Lloyd BillingsleyThis week marks a milestone for PRI’s weekly “Next Round” podcast as we celebrate our 100th episode. When we first started the podcast in July 2017, our podcast had a different name, “Another Round with PRI” (I won’t go into the story of why we......
June 25, 2019 Tim AnayaAs we get ready to celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday, we’re also preparing for an overload of turkey, pumpkin pie, and relatives. Thanksgiving is about more than getting a food coma. It’s about getting together with your loved ones and giving thank...
November 20, 2017 Tim AnayaThat sound you heard on the Fourth of July was not bands playing “God Bless America” or other patriotic songs. No, it was people complaining on social media about fireworks being set off in their neighborhoods. Where I live in Sacramento, you can buy...
July 09, 2018 Tim AnayaOn this Labor Day, we salute California’s hard-working men and women with a much-deserved three-day weekend while enjoying the unofficial end of the summer season. This Labor Day, we celebrate the fact that California’s public employees who don’t wan...
August 29, 2019 Tim AnayaWe’ve recently said that Elon Musk’s tunnel-boring project could be the potential foundation of a hyperloop transportation system. But as is too often the case in California, a reasonable objective has been sidelined by outrage. Musk has abandoned th...
December 10, 2018 Kerry JacksonThe state Senate held a joint informational hearing last month that, on the surface, looked to be a step forward for those who believe the California Environmental Quality Act needs reform, if not a top-to-bottom overhaul. But apparently the hearing ...
April 10, 2019 Kerry Jackson
By Daniel Kolkey It’s no coincidence that California’s housing prices began to diverge from the rest of the country in 1970 – the very year that the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) was enacted. According to California’s nonpartisan Legi...
February 13, 2019 Pacific Research InstituteAmid much fanfare, Major League Soccer last week announced that Sacramento has been awarded the 29th MLS franchise. Attention now turns to building a new $252 million stadium in the downtown Sacramento railyards before the team’s launch in 2022. Unf...
October 28, 2019 Tim AnayaIn what has come to be called Climategate, emails hacked from a server at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia were leaked online in November 2009. These emails among prominent climate scientists included evidence that some ha...
January 19, 2010 Amy KaleitaSan Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is no crime fighter. He’s among the new breed of decline-to-prosecute prosecutors whose elections have been funded by George Soros (and his political machine). The uber-wealthy agitator is determined to us...
February 04, 2020 Kerry JacksonIt made headlines around the world last week when China purportedly announced a historic commitment to reduce its “carbon intensity” – the greenhouse gases it emits per unit of GDP. “China unveiled firm targets,” The Gua...
December 02, 2009 Neil ReynoldsPolitical bias continues to increase in America’s classrooms and curricula. Giving parents school-choice tools is the only real solution. In the current school year, there have been disturbing cases across the country of teachers imposing their anti...
June 20, 2018 Lance IzumiLet’s take a quick look at a few of the environmental issues making news today, which include whether old coral formations in Mexico show a “catastrophic” rise in sea levels 12,000 years ago, and if so, what it might mean today. And more: Is consumpt...
April 16, 2009 Judy LoweCalifornia’s relatively mild climate means that, on average, our electricity bills are a smaller portion of our incomes relative to the rest of the country. But that doesn’t protect us from the increased costs of President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, a...
November 21, 2016 Kerry JacksonIf you spend more than 10 percent of your income on electricity, natural gas, and other household energy costs, then you are afflicted by energy poverty. It is a tragedy that forces some families to choose between keeping the lights on, or putting fo...
November 16, 2016 Wayne WinegardenEnergy poverty is a growing problem in San Diego’s working-class communities, and across California. If you spend more than 10 percent of your income on electricity, natural gas, and other household energy costs, then you are afflicted by energy pove...
November 04, 2016 Wayne WinegardenMore and more West Virginians are living in energy poverty today. If you spend more than 10 percent of your income on electricity, natural gas, and other household energy costs, then you are afflicted by energy poverty. It is a tragedy that forces so...
December 12, 2016 Wayne WinegardenYesterday the Assembly Appropriations Committee was scheduled to consider AB 2058, “Reducing Plastic Bags,” by Lloyd E. Levine, a Sherman Oaks Democrat, which imposes on consumers a recycling “fee” of $.25 per bag. The committee, and all Californians...
May 23, 2008 K. Lloyd BillingsleySACRAMENTO – Tomorrow the Assembly Appropriations Committee considers AB 2058, “Reducing Plastic Bags,” by Lloyd E. Levine, a Sherman Oaks Democrat, which imposes on consumers a recycling “fee” of $.25 per bag. The committee, and all Californians, sh...
May 21, 2008 K. Lloyd BillingsleyLast June, then-Gov. Jerry Brown and Sacramento’s political leaders dropped a proposed tax on drinking water. But Gov. Gavin Newsom, following the California Way, apparently aims to bring it back. Newsom, the Los Angeles Times reported “has embraced ...
February 26, 2019 Kerry JacksonIf the recent PPIC debate is any indication, expect this year’s race for State Superintendent of Public Instruction to be a close race with clear differences between the two candidates. Assemblyman Tony Thurmond, D-Richmond, wins the contest for most...
August 29, 2018 Tim AnayaOrganizers said the goal of the event, dubbed “Focus the Nation,” was to move past preaching to the green choir, to reach a captive audience of students in many fields who might not otherwise tune in to climate change issues.” The L...
February 01, 2008 Amy KaleitaIf the ‘progressives’ get their way on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it will be ordinary Americans who suffer, says John Entine Let’s call it the black box syndrome: making revolutionary changes or new products without any real handle on what ha...
May 16, 2008 Jon Entine(1) The Discount Rate. Economists give wildly different estimates of the “social cost of carbon” and hence the “optimal” tax on an additional unit of emissions. These differences are not primarily due to the assumptions about climate systems or human...
July 21, 2009 Robert P. MurphyA recent study of paleoclimate, the results of which appear in the August issue of Nature Geoscience, finds that today’s climate models do not accurately predict the most similar previous episode of climate warming in the geologic record. California ...
August 18, 2009 Amy KaleitaAnd so I asked the question on the minds of millions of my fellow concerned citizens: How can I get my snout into this trough? Easy: I buy a small car qualifying for the $4,500, and keep it for a few months until the cash-for-clunkers......
August 04, 2009 Benjamin ZycherThe lights may soon go out in the Washington, DC metro area and other parts of the country due to environmental activist opposition to coal-fired power plants, energy analysts are warning. “Electric power has already become painfully expensive ...
April 01, 2008 Pacific Research InstituteFirst it was too hot, then it was too icy, now it causes cancer. Thanks to a judge’s ruling last week, California coffee lovers may soon be seeing dire warnings about cancer risks in their favorite coffeehouses. But is concern for cancer really what...
April 06, 2018 Rowena ItchonRecently, headline after headline trumpeted that the College Board, which administers the SAT, eliminated students’ so-called “adversity score,” which was supposed to inform college admissions officials about the challenges students face or don’t fac...
September 05, 2019 Lance Izumi
State Analysis Paints Rosy Picture of Impact of CLEAR on Economy, Environment New analysis from the non-partisan Pacific Research Institute, a California-based free-market think tank, finds that Colorado’s proposed low emission vehicle standards woul...
July 22, 2019 Pacific Research InstituteColorado officials are painting a rosy picture of the impact on the economy and the environment from its low emission vehicle standards’ known as the Colorado Low Emission Automobile Regulation, or CLEAR. State officials prepared an initial economic ...
August 07, 2019 Wayne WinegardenThe March primary election is a month away. While we are already being bombarded with television advertising for the Democratic presidential race, there hasn’t been much discussion of ballot measures. That’s because in 2011, Democrats in the Legisla...
February 03, 2020 Tim AnayaBack in 2012, I wrote a book entitled Obama’s Education Takeover that warned about the harmful impact that the Common Core national education standards would have on student achievement, especially in California. Now a just released study confirms m...
May 12, 2020 Lance IzumiA new study commissioned by Governor John Kitzhaber underscores the need for competitive, rather than restrictive, markets for wood and timber products harvested in Oregon. Existing building policies for sustainable wood products stifle, rather than ...
September 23, 2014 Wayne WinegardenThanks to a stormy winter, California’s long drought is over says state government. But California’s man-made drought will continue as long as Sacramento misallocates our water supply. Maybe it’s time to appeal to a higher but distant authority. When...
August 08, 2017 Kerry JacksonA couple of Saturdays ago, I had to make a trip to my neighborhood Home Depot to pick up a few gardening supplies to do some work in the backyard. While looking for a replacement hose for my drip watering system (see, I am water......
May 21, 2018 Tim AnayaGrocery shopping in California isn’t what it used to be. Traditionally, customers carried their items away in paper bags provided by the store through an unspoken, but well-established and always understood, contract between seller and buyer. But the...
September 28, 2016 Kerry JacksonLecture from the Alworth Center for the Study of Peace and Justice, at The College of St. Scholastica, Duluth, Minnesota. Conventional Farming & Environmental Protection – by Amy Kaleita, Ph.D. Kaleita, who has a Ph.D. in agricultural engi...
January 21, 2009 Pacific Research InstituteWashington Post, October 1, 2009 Real Clear Politics, October 1, 2009 ReporterNews (Abilene, TX), September 30, 2009 Plateau in Temperatures Adds Difficulty to Task Of Reaching a Solution — New York Times, Sept. 23 WASHINGTON — In this he...
October 01, 2009 George WillTom Tanton [Senior Fellow, Energy Studies, Pacific Research Institute]: “The Copenhagen Climate Conference has concluded. The fanfare is over and world leaders have little to show for it. President Obama left the conference with hope that the c...
January 04, 2010 Thomas TantonOne of the intriguing reports to come out of the coronavirus pandemic is the partisan divide — not just among lawmakers — but even rank and file voters. Recent polls have consistently shown that Republicans are less concerned about the co...
April 14, 2020 Rowena ItchonYear to date, the Dow Index of the U.S.’s 30 largest companies is down 14 percent; the S&P 500, which tracks 500 large-cap companies, is down 8 percent; and the NASDAQ, an electronic system that trades many of the world’s fastest growing companie...
May 21, 2020 Rowena ItchonEven as House members consider themselves non-essential workers (they’ve decided to vote from home), it hasn’t stopped some lawmakers from coming up with bad ideas for the next stimulus package, including relief for states and municipalities with pre...
May 14, 2020 Rowena ItchonRoughly 30 million people have filed for unemployment since the coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc on the nation’s economy. Economists estimate that the unemployment rate now ranges from 15 to 20 percent – numbers not seen since the Great Depression...
May 05, 2020 Rowena ItchonThe sight of criminals running free in our streets gets the blood up. But while the looting and violence, as ugly as they are, will decelerate, there’s a relatively invisible hand of crime that has the potential to cause harm on a long-term basis. At...
June 08, 2020 Kerry JacksonAccording to the report, in recent months corn ethanol producers have faced a number of financial setbacks, including at least one highly visible bankruptcy. Although greater use of ethanol is mandated by federal law, the industry is suffering from o...
February 24, 2009 Thomas TantonOn Sept. 17, the California Air Resources Board released an economic analysis of their own implementation scheme for AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. The analysis said, “not only will the economy grow by a similar amount as we move to...
October 16, 2008 Thomas TantonBusinesses in California could use some good news, but one wonders when — and sometimes if — any will ever come. At the same time, there seems to be no end to the bad news, at least when government authorities are involved. The most recen...
May 22, 2018 Kerry JacksonWith nearly 40 million people and more than 70,000 farms taking up nearly 25 million acres, California is always thirsty. It is, as well, mostly dry. Deserts make up one-fourth of the state and semi-arid land occupies up at least that much, if not mo...
January 15, 2020 Kerry JacksonWhen talking about the management of California’s power grid, people’s eyelids will surely grow heavy before you finish making your point. But how California’s power grid is managed is incredibly important. Think back to 2001 and California’s electr...
March 21, 2018 Tim AnayaRegular Right by the Bay readers know that I have written often about the Legislature’s efforts in recent years to change California’s elections rules for political advantage. The latest of these is a bill enacted in the final weeks of the most impor...
February 20, 2020 Tim AnayaEver since Democrats won control of the U.S. House of Representatives, many have speculated whether President Trump and Democrats be able to make a deal on something big. With Democrats saying that they aren’t afraid to use their newfound-subpoena po...
November 28, 2018 Tim AnayaLast month, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger held an international climate summit to show local governments in other countries that greenhouse gas emissions can be cut, to the degree he wants, without harming the economy. This comes as the finan...
December 10, 2008 Thomas TantonThe U.S. Supreme Court recently rebuffed environmentalists in their bid to get the judiciary to intervene in the global-warming controversy by invoking the old common law of nuisance, as though global warming could be solved through an injunction. Bu...
July 28, 2011 Steven F. HaywardTax hikes, especially in the state known for its extraordinarily heavy tax burden, should not be easily enacted. Yet the California Supreme Court has made the job much easier. California law previously required a two-thirds majority for the passage o...
September 01, 2017 Kerry JacksonGiven a choice, would someone caught shoplifting rather make a voluntary arrangement with the victim to pay for their crime, or become involved with the police and courts? That’s a pointless question in California. There is no longer a choice. The ch...
September 12, 2017 Kerry JacksonEarlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case on utilities companies being sued for emitting carbon dioxide. That the case has reached the Supreme Court indicates how confused our judicial system is on the subject of climate, but i...
December 21, 2010 Amy KaleitaIn her March 25 Forbes editorial, Sally Pipes documented how the private sector is rising to the health challenges of the coronavirus. Whether it is Moderna launching clinical trials for a COVID-19 vaccine or Gilead Sciences investigating whether one...
April 21, 2020 Wayne WinegardenIt is basic Economics 101. Competitive markets create better outcomes than monopolists. Monopolists restrict supply and charge higher prices. Dynamically, monopolists face fewer incentives to create new products or improve how their products are made...
June 10, 2013 Wayne WinegardenIt’s been recently said that with Chesa Boudin as district attorney, San Francisco has two public defenders: Manohar Raju, the appointed public defender, and Boudin, the former public defender who critics might say acts more like a legal advocate for...
April 15, 2020 Kerry JacksonA new extensive report has just been released by one of our Blog Contributors: Tom Tanton. This report titled Top Ten Energy Myths offers insight into and facts on the myths that are permeated upon the public by the mainstream media. As an energy sup...
November 04, 2009 Pacific Research InstituteMuch has been written about perhaps the wildest last night of the legislative session ever. For those who weren’t paying attention, all but one Republican senator was quarantined when Sen. Brian Jones tested positive for COVID-19 a few days prior, fo...
September 07, 2020 Tim AnayaWhen presidential candidate Joe Biden began a campaign tour with the slogan, “No Malarkey” (a seeming oxymoron for a politician), the rallying cry was contradicted by his many apologies for past actions and positions. Had he fashioned his expedition ...
January 20, 2020 Pacific Research InstituteI have long adhered to the proposition that we should extend grace to our ideological opponents. In fact, when discussing fellow Americans, I reject wholesale the increasingly common language of combat in politics (e.g. political “enemies,” culture w...
September 17, 2019 Damon DunnWe’re painting the roses red, Painting the roses red, And many a tear we shed, Because we know, They’ll cease to grow, In fact, they’ll soon be dead. And yet we go ahead, Painting the roses red Just like the characters in Alice in W...
January 15, 2019 Wayne WinegardenSACRAMENTO – Legislators are more than six weeks past the constitutional deadline for passing a state budget, yet the state’s majority Democrats last week weren’t even holding budget hearings. Why bother? The state is $19 billion in the r...
August 13, 2010 Steven GreenhutIn California, we seem to be living in the days of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” As Steve Milloy said last week, there’s water, water everywhere, but almost nary a drop to drink. California has “840 miles of coastline,” tweeted Milloy, the autho...
February 21, 2018 Kerry JacksonSAN FRANCISCO – A new poll from the California-based nonpartisan think tank, the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), shows that Americans overwhelmingly support innovative gene therapies, which change the focus of medicine from treating illnesses to cu...
June 26, 2019 Pacific Research InstituteWe’ve heard it again and again, declarations from California’s progressive politicians on the need to attract “favored” industries to the state. And what are those favored industries? It’s an easy guess — tech, biotech, “clean” manufacturing, e...
March 09, 2018 Rowena ItchonThe Laotian rock rat isn’t a rat at all. It’s a squirrel that walks upright on its hind legs and lives in limestone crevices rather than in trees. Based on the rock rat’s fossil record, scientists concluded that it went extinct 11 m...
June 12, 2009 Neil ReynoldsRecently, I had a health scare that sent me to the emergency room for a few hours. The care that I received at UC Davis Medical Center was excellent. I drove myself to the emergency room at 6:30 in the morning. Upon registering, I saw......
August 20, 2019 Tim AnayaBy Makaila Warga Move over baby boomers, millennials are on the cusp of becoming the nation’s largest adult generation – and with that comes a significant opportunity to influence the public policy debate. Based on data recently collected by Pe...
November 20, 2018 Pacific Research InstituteBiofuels are made from either grain, sugar or vegetable oils–all important food products. There is increasing competition for feedstocks (food stocks?) between eating and energy. Rising prices for vegetable oil are forcing the world’s poo...
January 21, 2008 Thomas TantonThe California rush to ban foam takeout food containers is starting to look like a frenetic race that would embarrass even the most aggressive Black Friday shoppers. Currently, 119 cities and counties in California prohibit businesses from providing ...
December 03, 2018 Kerry JacksonDoes everyone by virtue of their existence have a right to shelter? It’s a question the California legislature will consider in 2019. Earlier this month, Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, introduced Senate Bill 48. This Right to Shelter Bill “aims ...
January 02, 2019 Kerry JacksonIan Calderon, the Assembly’s Democratic majority leader, wants to criminalize the act of providing unrequested free plastic straws at sit-down restaurants. Assembly Bill 1884 threatens waiters who give customers straws they didn’t ask for with as man...
February 08, 2018 Kerry JacksonMany large bureaucratic organizations are inefficient, but the EPA is in a class by itself. The EPA is incompetent and wasteful, and it often does more harm than good. It’s time for it to go. The EPA’s ever-expanding regulations impose hu...
January 28, 2019 Henry Miller, M.S., M.D.This year marks the 40th Anniversary of the “Miracle on Ice,” one of the biggest upsets in history when the United States hockey team beat the USSR in the semi-final game of the 1980 Winter Olympics. Anyone who watched the Olympics live or saw the......
March 09, 2020 Evan HarrisWhen it comes to choosing vendors and making other business decisions, we’ve all had our secret preferences – the tax attorneys who saved our competitors a lot of money, the website developers from our old firm, the office space next to our favorite ...
February 14, 2018 Rowena ItchonSacramento Union, November 6, 2008 A new study, Energy Efficiency, Innovation, and Job Creation in California, claims that California’s energy-efficiency policies created nearly 1.5 million jobs from 1977 to 2007. The Oct. 20 study, which examined on...
November 06, 2008 Thomas TantonAt 2 pm Eastern time today, President Trump spoke at the Department of Health and Human Services where he recommended a litany of policies that would ultimately impose price controls on the pharmaceutical market. Take his proposal to force the prices...
October 25, 2018 Wayne WinegardenPolicies intended to force Americans into electric vehicles, and taxpayer-financed subsidies that have propped up the EV industry aren’t consistent with those who believe government has limits. But this doesn’t mean that a company such as EV maker Te...
May 19, 2020 Kerry JacksonWith the support of Governor Schwarzenegger, the mayors of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose last week announced a $1-billion joint plan to make the Bay Area “the electric-vehicle capital of the world.” The announcement follows President-elect Oba...
December 05, 2008 Daniel R. BallonRecently, I had the opportunity to spend two weeks traveling throughout England, Ireland, and Scotland. Though each of the places we visited were very distinct from one another – the hotels that we stayed at had one thing in common – bulk dispensers ...
October 17, 2019 Tim AnayaIt seems you can’t scroll through your social media feed or morning newsletter without reading commentary about inverted yield curve and recession. A 2020 economic recession is the talk of political pundits, financial talking heads, and presidential ...
September 03, 2019 Evan Harris
Dr. Henry Miller, PRI’s new fellow in health care studies, joins us to discuss his recent Wall Street Journal op-ed challenging the “authentic” industry, which made waves nationally. We also discuss how over-regulation prevents beneficial products f...
September 24, 2018 Pacific Research InstitutePRI Senior Fellow Dr. Wayne Winegarden appeared on The Ethan Bearman Show on KGO-AM to discuss the fiscal consequences of California’s Proposition 55 — the state ballot initiative that would extend the “temporary” personal inc...
October 21, 2016 KGOIf approved by the California electorate this November, Proposition 23 will suspend the implementation of the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32) until the California unemployment rate declines to 5.5 percent or less for four cons...
October 09, 2010 Pacific Research InstituteEarth Day turns 40 today, April 22, a good time for scientists, politicians, journalists and the public to dump climate-change orthodoxy. Too many facts are interfering with the familiar story line. The earth is getting warmer and the cause is modern...
April 22, 2010 Pacific Research InstituteAmen to that, but whether it happens will reveal whether the global political class really wants to deal with climate, or whether they are more concerned with global governance and the whole moveable feast of UN pretensions. My money is on the UN pro...
December 21, 2009 Steven F. HaywardFacing a projected $40-billion budget shortfall, Governor Schwarzenegger last week proposed eliminating a redundant state board that has become a symbol of cronyism and inefficiency in Sacramento. Unlike most boards and commissions, which offer a sti...
January 14, 2009 Daniel R. BallonIt’s time to clear the air about how the United States affects the environment — and how extremist environmentalism could affect the U.S. A report of leading environmental indicators by the Pacific Research Institute and the American Ente...
April 22, 2008 Pacific Research InstituteCalifornia environmental officials have decided against implementing the “cool car” regulations they finalized last June. The move could be a first step toward a better environmental policy and an improved economy. Last June the California Air Resour...
April 21, 2010 K. Lloyd BillingsleyKansas City Hispanic News (Kansas City, MO), April 30, 2008* Holmen Courier (West Salem, WI), April 24, 2008 Mundo L.A. (Van Nuys, CA), April 24, 2008 With all the reminders to recycle, shrink our carbon footprint, and reduce our consumption of goods...
April 10, 2008 Sally C. PipesIn case anyone has forgotten (and many long have), April 22 is Earth Day. And while the coronavirus pandemic has put a chill on this year’s worldwide 50th jubilee celebration, it hasn’t caused its demise. If anything, progressive climate change advo...
April 22, 2020 Rowena ItchonThe Eureka Reporter, April 24, 2008 SACRAMENTO — Earth Day events here were rather different this year. Car dealers showcased their latest hybrids, hippies were little in evidence, and the crowd was more upscale. There was even, yes, valet parking fo...
April 24, 2008 K. Lloyd BillingsleyPRI senior fellow Steve Hayward joins us for a special Earth Day edition of Next Round. We talk all things environment, from how the environmental movement morphed from a call for conservation to a push for socialism, how the Green New Deal would hu...
April 22, 2019 Pacific Research InstituteIt’s the day of the year that the world celebrates being green and there’s certainly a lot to be “green” about today. The Pacific Research Institute and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) published their yearly Index of Leading Environmental Ind...
April 22, 2009 Pacific Research InstituteBy Henry I. Miller, M.S., M.D. and Jeff Stier Today is Earth Day, a celebration originally conceived by then-U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-Wis.) and first held in 1970 as a “symbol of environmental responsibility and stewardship.” In the spirit of t...
April 22, 2019 Pacific Research InstituteTwo items rattled across my desk that, at first glance, didn’t appear to share much in common. The first, a letter from former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall and his wife, Lee Udall, to their grandchildren, appeared in Colorado-ba...
April 14, 2008 Shelby WoodThe press for more offshore drilling has opened a rift among California environmentalists. Many are calling for increased oil recovery to reduce the amount of natural oil seepage, while others continue to fear the risk of major spills. In Santa Barba...
September 01, 2008 Thomas TantonThe Pacific Research Institute recently released its “U.S. Economic Freedom Index: 2008 Report” and the results are pretty interesting. PRI defines economic freedom as “the right of individuals to pursue their interests through voluntary exchange of ...
November 10, 2008 Eric HeidenreichTo pay for it, the bill’s authors would use the same resource they tried to take in HR 6: rescinding tax incentives for the oil and natural gas industry. That could raise almost $18 billion over 10 years. But the renewable-energy lobby is trying to.....
February 19, 2008 Thomas TantonIf you want to handicap a man for the rest of his life, deny him an education. This is manifestly true in America, as the disadvantages associated with a poor education tend to multiply in a free society and a free economy. It is our......
May 02, 2018 Damon DunnWhen the Pacific Research Institute asked business leaders about what makes California an unattractive state to locate or expand their companies, one respondent said, “Every single thing you can imagine.” And, among the many complaints from business...
March 07, 2018 Lance IzumiWhile high-speed rail, California’s monument to folly, mocks itself with unfinished concrete pillars rising toward the sky like empty hands and tracks leading to nowhere, a tunnel burrowed by entrepreneur Elon Musk beneath Los Angeles might be the fo...
November 15, 2018 Kerry JacksonThe California electorate next month will vote on Proposition 23, which would suspend the implementation of the state’s global warming (i.e., energy taxation) law (“AB32″) until the unemployment rate reaches 5.5 percent for four consecuti...
October 06, 2010 Benjamin ZycherThe political left has long wanted the United States to be more like Europe. Its appetite for Europeanization is clearly visible in California where the political class that runs the state has demanded a bullet train of its very own. At the groundbre...
July 11, 2018 Kerry JacksonI have written before on the benefits and drawbacks of the various universal basic income (UBI) proposals bubbling up the last few years in the American political scene, specifically the economic, political, and moral dimensions of these policies. A...
January 14, 2020 Damon DunnLegislation that would have required all electric power sold in the state to be generated by renewable sources by 2045 was held up in the final days of the recently-completed legislative session. But it will come back. Should the idea ever become law...
September 28, 2017 Kerry JacksonFor many generations California was the land of promise, where people could earn fortunes, freely express themselves, and live easily with minimal interference from authorities. It was a well-deserved image. But the dream is now a mirage. California ...
August 28, 2018 Kerry JacksonLast week, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden unveiled his economic platform in Pennsylvania, calling for an end to the “era of shareholder capitalism.” It seems that Jack Lew, former treasury secretary and a member of the Biden brain trust, n...
July 15, 2020 Rowena ItchonA few months back we wrote about California’s “nags and nannies who relish forbidding pleasure, especially those of a gastronomic nature,” and their success in convincing a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to issue a preliminary ruling which requires...
July 03, 2018 Kerry JacksonWashington. The maxim states that the simplest solution is usually the correct one. And America’s financial crisis is no exception to the rule. Overwhelmed by bailout plans and other convoluted proposals, many of our nation’s leaders are missing the ...
April 16, 2009 Thomas TantonOf the hot topics discussed in Washington and the media, there is probably none where the substance-to-blather ratio is higher than in energy, where slogans substitute for serious thought, and where pointing out unwelcome facts is frowned upon as a m...
September 20, 2009 Steven F. HaywardNot surprisingly, the study asserts that continuing on a “business-as-usual” energy path risks greater economic insecurity, while aggressive acceleration of clean energy assures faster and more sustained economic growth. Relying on renewable sources ...
June 16, 2009 Thomas TantonThe last week of December is naturally a time to look back on the year that was. Here at PRI, we are particularly proud of the growing popularity of our weekly “Next Round with PRI” podcast and our daily “Right by the Bay” blog. Thanks......
December 26, 2019 Tim AnayaThat sound you hear this morning is millions of California voters feeling relieved that the primary election is finally over in the Golden State. Many are rejoicing the fact that they won’t have to see any more campaign advertising the next time the...
March 04, 2020 Tim AnayaRecent polls show that many college students are worried about the declining state of free speech on campus. In California, the attacks on campus free speech have been fierce and increasing. PRI’s Steve Hayward, who is currently teaching at UC Berke...
March 16, 2018 Lance IzumiEarth Day turns 40 today, a good time to review some realities we didn’t know on the first Earth Day in 1970, when economic prosperity was assumed to be the enemy of the environment. That turns out to be wrong. The Index of Leading Environmental......
April 22, 2010 K. Lloyd BillingsleyStephen H. Schneider, hailed as the “Carl Sagan of climate science,” and who served on the international panel that won the 2007 Nobel Prize with Al Gore, has passed away at 65. He should be remembered as much more than a global warming alarmist. In....
July 27, 2010 K. Lloyd BillingsleySteven Hayward is not only the author of the forthcoming “The Age of Reagan, 1980-1989: The Conservative Counterrevolution. He is also the author of the fourteenth annual edition of the Index of Leading Environmental Indicators, just published ...
April 26, 2009 Scott JohnsonEnvironmental groups advocating for land conservation and protection of endangered species are lining up in opposition to measures to expedite solar energy projects on federal lands, particularly in the Mojave Desert, announced by Interior Department...
September 01, 2009 Pacific Research InstituteEnvironment and Climate News, August 1, 2008 Live Journal, July 23, 2008 Greenie Watch, August 26, 2008 Scientists at Columbia University are developing a carbon dioxide (CO2) scrubber device that removes one ton of CO2 from the air every day. While ...
August 01, 2008 Krystle RussinGreen groups blame a widely-used insecticide for bee ‘die-offs,’ but the evidence is weak. In January, the European Commission advised the EU not to use neonicotinoids, a relatively new class of agricultural insecticides. Now the member c...
March 05, 2013 Richard TrenSACRAMENTO – One of the most unusual vote-buying scams the Obama administration may have used to pass its health care socialization plan was an alleged promise to two Democratic congressmen to increase federal water supplies to the San Joaquin Valley...
March 26, 2010 Steven GreenhutAmericans are rightfully outraged over the massive data breach at Equifax. We’re also upset about how the company handled the announcement of the breach and its proposed remedy. What made the Equifax breach so jarring was how many of us are victims....
October 25, 2017 Tim AnayaYou would think that California’s current $21.4 billion budget surplus would be plenty of money to fund the spending wish list of those thwarted over the past 8 years by former Gov. Jerry Brown’s adherence to the principle of subsidiarity. Think agai...
March 28, 2019 Tim AnayaPittsburgh Tribune-Review (PA), February 15, 2008 Press Dakotan, February 15, 2008 Billings Gazette (MT), February 12, 2008 Investor’s Business Daily, February 11, 2008 WASHINGTON – The red-hot congressional love affair with the alternati...
February 15, 2008 Pacific Research InstituteTwenty years ago, I had my first op-ed published in a major newspaper, the Los Angeles Times. The title was “Pull the Plug on the Electric Car Mandate.” In that column, I pointed out that battery-powered (non-hybrid) electric vehicles were not ready ...
June 09, 2015 Kenneth P. GreenIn March, the Trump administration saved Obamacare in Idaho. It was a hard decision for administration officials, who harbor no love for the health law. But it was the right call. Idaho officials wanted to help residents who have been harmed by Obama...
April 05, 2018 Sally C. PipesRecently, I moderated a PRI Webinar on Cybersecurity, Data Privacy, and Regulation During the Coronavirus Pandemic. It was a fantastic look at the current state of data privacy, the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, and where state and federal reg...
June 24, 2020 Evan HarrisSay Anything Blog, May 14, 2009 RXnews.com (Bismarck, ND), May 14 2009 12:00AM Great video of Dr. Robert Murphy talking about the myth of so-called “green jobs.” I’ll be interviewing Dr. Murphy on my radio show this Friday, and he’ll be appearing at ...
May 14, 2009 Pacific Research InstituteAdvocates for Agriculture, December 19, 2008 By: Alan Caruba In 2006 the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) issued a report, “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” that was so full of absurd claims, dressed up to look like science, that I ma...
December 19, 2008 Troy HadrickObamacare’s fifth open enrollment season just ended for the 39 states served by Healthcare.gov — and it was a major failure in terms of enrollees. Fewer than 10 million people signed up for 2018 health plans through the state and federal exchan...
December 19, 2017 Sally C. PipesPolicy debates over curriculum often center on test scores and other student performance indicators. However, according to a recent lawsuit filed in federal court, curricular bias and indoctrination have reached shocking levels that raise serious co...
January 09, 2019 Lance IzumiThere’s a popular saying we are all familiar with, and it rings truer each time I hear it: “As California goes, so goes the nation.” If you want to know the policy battles America and the other states will soon be fighting, look no further......
December 28, 2018 Ben SmithwickAs our nation enters a pivotal presidential election year, it will be critically important to promote and defend free markets and individual freedom in California and throughout the country. The Pacific Research Institute remains committed to advanci...
December 30, 2019 Ben SmithwickIrate over plummeting stock prices in recent weeks, the media reported that President Trump wanted to fire his appointed Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. But can he really fire him? It turns out that the law is murky in this area. Trump can fire Powell...
January 08, 2019 Rowena Itchon
This afternoon, the Senate Budget Committee will hold its first hearing on the state’s response to the coronavirus. Today’s hearing promises to be memorable for two reasons. It will be the first hearing with “social distancing” practices that have b...
April 16, 2020 Tim AnayaMost of the press reports on the negative environmental impacts of renewable fuel have centered on the production of ethanol. Seems that ethanol production, because of changes in land use patterns, run off, fertilizers and sprays, often causes more p...
March 11, 2008 Thomas TantonCourtesy of the polar vortex, unseasonably cold temperatures came to a broad swath of the country, from Texas to Maine, last week, causing frost damage to crops and ornamental plants. (And snow in New York City’s Central Park on May 9). Cherry and ot...
May 12, 2020 Henry Miller, M.S., M.D.It seems that Seattle is no longer evergreen for Amazon. Last week, the company announced that it’s on the hunt for a second headquarters. There wasn’t a clear explanation for why the online retail giant is seeking a new habitat. But even climate cha...
September 14, 2017 Rowena ItchonMy husband, Charles Kesler, and I have spent the last several Christmas holidays in London. Each year, the news headlines about the National Health Service (single-payer British style) seem to get worse and worse. I often save the articles to use as...
January 19, 2018 Sally C. PipesIt’s not uncommon to find people who think San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities, if not the most beautiful city, in the world. Neither would it be shocking to learn that people are finding it to be one of the most unlivable......
March 03, 2020 Kerry JacksonWhen Barack Obama called college an economic imperative, he did a disservice to millions of young people. When the current cast of presidential hopefuls call for college that’s free, they do a disservice to America. For years, liberals have romantici...
February 28, 2019 Rowena ItchonCNSNews.com, March 24, 2009 Lux Libertas, March 24, 2009 Green Being, March 24, 2009 (CNSNews.com) – While President Barack Obama touted a greener future for America on Monday, free-market economists expressed skepticism about the prospects of green ...
March 24, 2009 Pacific Research Institute
California is home to six of the 10 cities with the worst air pollution in the country. This seems inconceivable, given that the state has the strictest environmental rules in the nation. Clearly, policymakers have been making the wrong choices. Of c...
April 27, 2017 Kerry JacksonEditor’s Note: Damon Dunn breaks down what are often-confusing economic concepts and makes free market economics more relatable to our everyday lives in his new Right by the Bay column, ‘Free Markets 101’. We are pleased to present his debut column...
January 09, 2018 Damon DunnThe U.S. economy has generated more wealth for more people than any other economic system in human history, and it’s not even close. What began as a small group of colonies clustered near the eastern seaboard of a mostly empty continent founded by po...
June 07, 2018 Damon DunnThis essay is meant to be a simple and straight forward look at how adding specific skill sets allowed me to have socioeconomic mobility and earn wages that allow me to send my daughter to private school, own a home, and enjoy a better present......
October 04, 2018 Damon DunnOne of the most common themes in American politics is the emphasis on preserving or restoring our role as a land of opportunity. Across the political spectrum, there is a general sense that the intergenerational promise of upward mobility is becoming...
July 10, 2018 Damon DunnThe United States’ K-12 system of education must evolve to keep pace with the changing global economy. America has consistently taken a leading role in the world in a broad range of industries because we have avoided each century’s intellectual polit...
April 04, 2018 Damon DunnGov. Gavin Newsom announced last week that he was going to name an energy czar “in the wake of Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s prolonged power outages,” says the Sacramento Bee, because. According to the governor, “the entire system needs to be re...
November 06, 2019 Kerry JacksonMany of you may be unaware, but this past week was National Clean Energy Week. And, while many economically harmful policies have been proposed in pursuit of clean, efficient, and cost-effective renewable energy, the goal is worthwhile. It just matte...
September 28, 2018 Wayne WinegardenThere are not enough politicians who know what it takes to run a business. Many argue that government would improve if it was run more like a business. Having been an entrepreneur and business owner, I know firsthand the blessings and challenges that...
November 07, 2018 Damon DunnOur politics are full of paeans to small business. Regardless of one’s policy preferences or party affiliation, everyone appears rhetorically to be on the side of small business. As an entrepreneur and small business owner, I am reminded daily of the...
October 18, 2018 Damon DunnComing from Hollywood may explain Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s disconnect with reality. In the real world, saying so doesn’t make it so. In Copenhagen this week, he made the astonishing claim that the Golden State is evidence we need not ...
December 17, 2009 Pacific Research InstituteFor too long, Sacramento has ignored Rural California, enacting policies that are out-of-step with the values of those living north of the State Capitol. Fed-up North State residents have been loudly pushing a proposal to break the state in two. If t...
October 02, 2017 Tim AnayaAncient scrolls tell us there was once an era when Californians rose up against the heavy hand of taxation. In the now-distant year of 1978 voters approved Proposition 13 to limit the government’s reach in property taxes. The final tally was a 65-35 ...
April 18, 2018 Kerry JacksonCalifornians who didn’t fill up on Tuesday are probably kicking themselves today. Tax hikes on gasoline and diesel fuel went into effect, sending prices significantly higher. The levy on a gallon of gasoline spiked 12 cents, from 18 cents to 30, whil...
November 01, 2017 Kerry JacksonDon’t Mind the Gap: Gender Pay Disparities Are No Evidence of Discrimination By Sally C. Pipes, President, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy Pacific Research Institute October 14, 2016 Hillsdale College’s Center for Co...
October 26, 2016 Pacific Research InstituteBack on Feb. 15, George Will wrote an op-ed in the The Washington Post in which he claimed: As global levels of sea ice declined last year, many experts said this was evidence of man-made global warming. Since September, however, the increase in sea ...
April 13, 2009 Robert P. Murphy
The electric-vehicle tax credit should be taken off the road Some government foolishness has an educational value that compensates for its considerable cost. Consider the multibillion-dollar federal electric-vehicle tax credit, which efficiently illu...
April 17, 2019 George WillA lush green lawn has a certain aesthetic appeal, there’s no denying that. If lawn was counted as a crop, however, it would be one of the nation’s biggest, but it is far from a critical need as far as water use. Yet, watering lawns......
March 17, 2009 Amy KaleitaFront Page Magazine, April 22, 2008 Earth Day 2008 brings good news about the environment but also reveals a strange dynamic. Despite a nearly non-stop public dialogue, including an Oscar-winning movie and two Nobel prizes, Americans are actually tak...
April 22, 2008 Amy KaleitaWith the holiday season upon us, now is the time when pundits in Washington and Sacramento get out their crystal balls and offer their unsolicited predictions on what will happen in politics, policy, and government in 2018. Now that we have the “Righ...
December 21, 2017 Tim AnayaSensible environmental regulations play an indispensable role ensuring that public lands are sustainably managed. But, as Earth Day’s 47th anniversary is celebrated, it is important to recognize that sensible regulations should also encourage the res...
April 22, 2016 Wayne WinegardenSomething was wrong with Sally Ann, the beloved boat of Barry Treahy, another boating fan hit by the switch over. For months, Sally Ann did not run right and Treahy’s remedies weren’t working. He kept changing her fuel filters, rebuilt he...
April 15, 2008 Thomas Tanton
The latest hot social theory in California is universal basic income. Essentially, it’s about paying people to do nothing. Academics and tech titans have promoted it to address poverty, rising costs of living, and even the temporarily disruptive eff...
July 19, 2018 Tim AnayaRepublican Assemblyman James Gallagher of Yuba City joins us at his Sacramento office to talk about the Oroville Dam emergency, building California water storage, and his proposal to give the North State a bigger voice in California politics....
July 25, 2017 Pacific Research InstituteEnvironment & Climate News (Heartland Institute), September 1, 2008 Global warming activists are putting agriculture firmly in their crosshairs, launching new efforts to restrict meat production and consumption. This latest anti-meat campaign bu...
September 01, 2008 Krystle RussinWhenever you hear a politician start a sentence with, “If we can put a man on the moon… ,” grab your wallet. For years, Democrats, enthralled by the cargo cult of the Kennedy presidency, have used the moon landing as proof that no b...
June 11, 2009 Jonah GoldbergIt doesn’t happen often enough, but sometimes freedom wins in California. In the most recent of these rare events, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals – yes, the Ninth – affirmed late last month a lower-court ruling that said the San Francisco or...
February 07, 2019 Kerry JacksonSan Francisco – California should lift bans and restrictions to help alleviate the water distribution problem, according to Go with the Flow: Why water markets can solve California’s water crisis, a Pacific Research Institute report released today. T...
December 02, 2008 Amy KaleitaThe primary goal of cap-and-trade legislation is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. It’s really that simple. But, as someone once said, the devil is in the details. And, that saying holds true for cap and trade, too. Steven Hayward, a Fellow at the ...
August 16, 2009 Pacific Research InstituteWhen I mentioned to our editorial committee that I was going to work on a blog on good bills out of California’s recent legislative session, Kerry Jackson joked that I needed fewer than 100 words to cover that topic. After a few hours of hunting......
September 17, 2020 Rowena ItchonEarth Day was held this week, which is an appropriate time to make an assessment. Generally, the environment in Jacksonville is pleasant. It’s rare to have an air pollution alert. The St. Johns River looks marvelous. Yet, tributaries are unfit ...
April 22, 2008 Pacific Research InstituteLater the same month, Al Gore introduced a proposal for 100 percent of U.S. electricity to be generated from renewable energy within 10 years. The Google web page for their plan references both schemes, stating that the intention of the latest propos...
October 08, 2008 Thomas TantonNext week, Republicans will officially take control of Congress. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and new Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have both said that they’re “renewing our commitment to repeal ObamaCare” in 2015. The U.S. Su...
December 29, 2014 Pacific Research InstituteWhen Gov. Jerry Brown issued an executive order last year mandating reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, he said he did it for California’s future. But his motives were irrelevant. He broke the law, says the...
June 02, 2016 Kerry JacksonAs much as we have criticized Gov. Jerry Brown, we have to acknowledge that on occasion he will act as the senior statesman of his party, beating back its most mindless impulses. The most recent example: his judicious counsel on single-payer health c...
October 12, 2017 Kerry JacksonYears ago, in perhaps one of the most well-known episodes of her long-running talk show, Oprah Winfrey gave away shiny-red Pontiacs to all of the unsuspecting members of her studio audience. Uttering a phrase that has gone down in pop culture history...
May 13, 2019 Tim AnayaAbout once a month, I travel by Amtrak to Emeryville, and then by shuttle bus across the bay, for events or meetings at PRI’s San Francisco headquarters. Usually, I take the shuttle bus that stops in front of the Hyatt Regency at the Embarcadero Cent...
October 02, 2018 Tim Anaya
Generous, taxpayer-funded subsidies for electric car purchases have become just another costly subsidy benefitting the rich, finds a new study released today by the California-based free-market think tank, the Pacific Research Institute. Click here t...
February 12, 2018 Wayne WinegardenDownload Capital Ideas, October 2017 Gasoline prices spiked more sharply in some states after deadly storms in Texas and Florida than at any time since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But in California, steep fuel prices are an everyday event. The average...
October 06, 2017 Kerry JacksonIn sharp contrast to a recent study from the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) reporting implementation of AB32 would bring about a net job loss and raise state unemployment in the near future and stressing that long term effects are “uncertai...
March 26, 2010 Thomas TantonRenewable energy that is forced on the California market means higher energy costs for everyone. Renewables are simply more expensive—which is why their proponents have to argue for mandates (and not coincidently, the highest levels of direct subsidy...
September 25, 2009 Thomas TantonOn Friday, Governor Brown released his final “May Revise” budget proposal. For those who aren’t fluent in government-ese, the May Revise is the Governor’s revised budget proposal, taking into account updated tax receipts, economic trends, and budget ...
May 14, 2018 Tim AnayaGovernor Jerry Brown wants to eliminate dozens of state panels and commissions, a good idea and long overdue. But the governor needs to be more inclusive, and stalk bigger game. His list includes the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, a typical so...
June 08, 2011 K. Lloyd BillingsleyGov. Gavin Newsom released his May Revise budget plan on Thursday – a dramatically different budget from his January plan that anticipated a $5.6 billion surplus. California now faces a $54.3 billion deficit. In a press conference that lasted more t...
May 18, 2020 Tim AnayaAs I wrote back in 2007, “Investing in renewable energy will provide a clean source of power and create an explosion of new jobs. In late September [2007], this claim attracted the attention of the U.S. Senate Energy and Public Works Committee ...
January 11, 2009 Thomas TantonA lot has already been said about the Green New Deal, including my favorite: “What planet is she on?” from Brian Kilmeade of FOX. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is on planet California, that’s where. The “green dream or whatever” as Nancy Pelosi dismissi...
February 14, 2019 Rowena Itchon
Democrat firebrands Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey just unveiled their “Green New Deal,” a multi-trillion-dollar effort to overhaul the energy industry and slash America’s net greenhouse gas emissions to zero within a decade. The le...
March 13, 2019 Wayne WinegardenOrange County Register, May 8, 2008 Economic growth best way to aid environment Here’s good news that may have escaped attention. The environment worldwide is getting better and better, largely because of economic growth, efficiency and innovat...
May 08, 2008 Pacific Research InstituteWhen is California going to lift the shelter-in-place orders? As temperatures soar and people gain cabin fever after weeks of being stuck inside, it’s the question on everyone’s minds these days. In his April 28 press conference, Gov. Gavin Newsom s...
May 04, 2020 Tim AnayaAs we approach the birthday of Vladimir Lenin, founder of the Soviet Union (oops, I meant Earth Day) it’s so easy to confuse the two because they occur, quite by coincidence I’m sure, on the same day. Anyway April 22 will bring forth an a...
May 22, 2008 Alan CarubaJust in time for Earth Day on April 22, the American Enterprise Institute and the Pacific Research Institute are out today with their annual Index of Leading Environmental Indicators. Despite the scare talk of groups like the Sierra Club, after four ...
April 22, 2013 Steven HaywardEarlier this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic could be the crisis that his party has been looking for to permanently establish a progressive “nation-state.” “There is opportunity for reimagining a progressive era as it...
April 27, 2020 Kerry JacksonIn a recent interview with Jason Clemens, Economist and Director of Research for the Pacific Research Institute, he explained that California’s budget problems are not really about taxes or the costs of illegal immigration. PRI is near completion of ...
April 22, 2009 Michael HaleyWith the end of the year upon us, what better time to talk about all that we have accomplished at the Pacific Research Institute in 2017. In the past 12 months, we have: promoted policies that expand access to high-quality education through school ch...
December 29, 2017 Ben SmithwickA central theme of my previous columns has been the importance and primacy of the individual. Economic policymakers cling to their blackboard models but forget that even for unambiguously “net-positive” interventions, there are millions of people bei...
May 09, 2019 Damon DunnOver the years, I had the opportunity to work for 9 consecutive Assembly Republican Leaders. To say that leading the minority party in California is a great challenge is an understatement. Transitioning from being one Senator representing roughly 1 ...
April 10, 2018 Tim AnayaThe Sacramento Bee recently ran an article with a rather curious headline – “Fix California roads without the new gas taxes?” Reading the article from our friends at the Bee, they make it seem like funding road repair projects without a tax increase ...
August 13, 2018 Tim AnayaThough no legislation has been passed yet, California officials have made it clear they want to outlaw automobiles powered by internal-combustion engines. But it’s a near certainty they won’t be able to secure an all-electric fleet within their timet...
June 27, 2019 Kerry JacksonThis week in Washington, Democrats and Republicans are squabbling over the next economic stimulus package. Republicans have proposed a roughly $1 trillion plan, while Speaker Pelosi is pushing a $3 trillion plan. The partisan haggling and negotiati...
July 28, 2020 Tim AnayaSupporters of the Waxman-Markey climate bill have not seriously disputed the extreme costs and the negligible benefits estimated by critics of the cap-and-trade proposal. I must confess that I was expecting a real fight, but some very important marke...
May 12, 2009 Robert P. MurphyOn New Year’s Day, months after wildfires had started their deadly march through California, the Los Angeles Times published an article headlined “After the flames, allegations of rent-gouging fly in devastated wine country communities.” It did not i...
January 15, 2018 Kerry JacksonA state homelessness task force is recommending that local governments be hauled into court if they aren’t moving people off the streets. It’s unlikely to help. The most probable outcome is an increased burden on the courts and a higher dose of polit...
January 22, 2020 Kerry JacksonReason Online, May 1, 2008 A nifty new study by some Massachusetts Institute of Technology students finds that even the average American homeless person uses about double the amount of greenhouse gas emitting energy than is the world average. Below a...
May 01, 2008 Ronald BaileyThe Pacific Research Institute joins all Americans in honoring our fallen heroes this Memorial Day Weekend. We salute the bravery and sacrifices of the military servicemembers throughout our nation’s history who gave their lives so we could li...
May 25, 2018 Pacific Research InstituteVeterans Day, which we celebrated on November 11th, is not only a national holiday where we honor those men and women who served in our armed forces, but it is also an intensely personal day where family and friends remember their loved ones who wore...
November 12, 2018
